Akren Mountain School of Magic
by Icy22
Summary: What would a muggle do in the best Magic School? Terence/Thomas will show the magic world what muggle technology and magic can do. Spin-off to Changes in a Time of War by Miranda Flairgold, set 1 year before start of trilogy.
1. Chapter 1: Surprised Encounter

**Akren, School of Magic**

**Icy**

This fanfiction is based off my favourite writer, Miranda Flairgold's fanfiction trilogy. This fanfiction should be set one year before the start of A Second Chance at Life by Miranda. You may find her works at .net/u/100447/Miranda_Flairgold.

Everything that can be recognised as from the Harry Potter books belong to Rowling. Every other thing that can be recognised from Miranda's trilogy belong to her and hopefully the rest are truly mine and not derived off other works which I had read, seen or played.

I would really appreciate your reviews to encourage me to continue. Hassle me all you want if I don't keep writing without a reason. Anyway, please enjoy my fanfic.

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Chapter 1: Surprised Encounter

Nvara Aelfly, Headmistress of Akren Mountain School of Magic, lengthened her strides as her finely attuned sense recognised the undertaking of immense irregular magic work. The trip to Australia had just turned interesting. Pulling a length of her long grey hair with her left hand and retrieving a piece of string from her pocket with her right, the headmistress began twisting and knotting the two in intricate designs. Feeling her magic responded to the thread magic, Nvara threw her mind out like rippling waves of water. What she sensed turned her fast walk into a jog, eager to meet the individual responsible of causing the interesting phenomena she felt.

Someone was draining the local magical beings of their magic energy. Nvara wondered how those beings failed to notice the drain on their reserve but decided that the amount lost must be too insignificant. After all, if it wasn't for her ability to sense the clearly separate and different powers gathering at the single location, she would have thought that everything was normal and someone was just doing some major warding. What fascinates Nvara though is how the different energies were being gathered? She, the headmistress of the best magical school, obviously knew quite a few ways to do so, but this was definitely not one she was familiar with.

The person in the centre of the localised magical energy should be able to provide that answer, provided he or she doesn't mind her intrusion. Nvara slowed her pace as she neared her target, taking in the sight of the modest house, no doubt the home of the wizard or witch working with the dense magic energy. Reaching out to open the gate, Nvara didn't even need to silence the well-oiled hinge as the gate swung smoothly inward.

Suddenly, like flicking a switch, all the magic which had intrigued the sixty something years old lady vanished. Snapping her wand out and pulling on layers of protection in the split second, Nvara waited. Everything around seemed to have returned to normal, the stolen magic returned to their rightful owner. Releasing a silent burst of magic towards the house and sensing the lack of human presence, she immediately attempted to find the missing person.

"Who are you and what are you doing?" Nvara felt cold steel pressed against her neck. Turning slowly, she was greeted by the sight of a young Asian teen, probably Chinese, with black hair that framed his relatively childish face. The boy's dark brown eyes were focused on her hands and his body posed, ready to strike at any sudden movement. Nvara kept silent as she magically sensed the boy and the route he took to ambush her. What the headmistress found shocked her greatly. The boy had no magic channels, which would indicate a squib. But he also had no magic power. He was a muggle.

Keeping a completely straight face that completely hid her surprise, Nvara replied, "My name is Nvara Aelfly, Headmistress of Akren Mountain School of Magic. How would you like to join our school?"

XXX

Thomas matched the lady's expression, hiding his thoughts which raced to process the information. This lady, Nvara as she called herself, was a professional fighter. The slight lumps and bumps of hidden weapons underneath the deer hide jacket and the smooth movement of her body informed Thomas of that. From the tingling feeling Thomas was feeling, he has no doubt that she was a witch. Sensing no ill intent and detecting no facial reaction indicating the telling of a lie, Thomas lowered his dagger but kept his slightly defensive pose.

"Magic?" Thomas feinted ignorance. He of course, was no more ignorant of magic than the wand in Nvara's right hand.

"Yes, Magic. And if possible, I would like to discuss what I just witnessed." Thomas pondered for a while as he felt the sensing magic which had been directed at him retreated, eventually giving a faint nod and led Nvara into the house. His eyes though facing the other way, constantly kept the short lady in sight through the reflections of glasses and mirrors scatter all around the house.

Thomas had always been an extremely bright child. With an IQ score of 190 when he was a mere 5 year old, he would easily have made it into university then. Instead, Thomas hid his ability from the world, acting just like any other children his own age. His ability to learn nearly anything extended even to fighting, which the boy had an enormous interest in. At the age of 15, Thomas stumbled upon the world of magic when his highly refined senses from years of self-training noted the movements of wizards and witches entering and exiting sites unseen by his fellow muggles. Realising a world beyond that which he had experienced, the teen had managed to access the world through pure will power, bypassing old muggle repelling charms without leaving a trace of his entrance. With the new world opened to the intelligent teen, he had slowly and steadily explored anything magical. Eventually Thomas began buying ingredients to work magic, like potions, which did not require the use of magic channels, the feature which separates wizards and witches from squibs. But for a boy with that amount of intelligence, instructions from books slowly became redundant as Thomas quickly grasped the effects of each ingredient. All too soon, the teen had started inventing not only potions, but even magical items, many of which were now stored in special cases that stopped the flow of magic from being sensed.

Thomas had quickly found that most wizards and witches were even less attuned to magic than he was and many couldn't sense the lack of magic output from him which all magical being usually radiated. Knowing this, Thomas had then started to undergo larger magical projects and all of those were never detected by others. This one which he had been undertaking before sensing the presence of an intruder had been a continuation of another which had also gone unnoticed the day before, so how did this lady detected it?

Thomas glanced at Nvara as she sat down in the seat he offered her. She was not a normal witch, that Thomas was certain. Unknown to her, his physical prowess had allowed him to hear her running towards him from 200 metres away. Thomas had been aware of Nvara's presence since her apparation within 500 metres of his house a fair way from the Sydney magical markets, but it had taken the opening of the front gate to confirm her target, him. He had surprised her when he turned up behind her, having seen the slight twitch of her face which even Nvara did not know she had made. Now looking at her survey his room, Thomas was sure she could sense a lot better than the normal wizards and witches. This is not a lady to be taken lightly.

"May I ask how you, a muggle, came to the knowledge and procession of magical items?" asked the grey hair woman. Thomas stared at the bluntness of the question, before deciding to answer with a question.

"If I tell you, will you answer my questions?"

"As many as I can." Thomas licked his lips as he loosened his tongue.

As the conversation volleyed back and forth, Thomas was certain her information would be very useful and Akren, the School of Magic may be just the thing to challenge his mind.

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Please Review


	2. Chapter 2: The Black Fox

Author's rant:

I take time to get into a story so the first few chapters are going to be a bit short, please bear with me. Unlike Miranda, I am not very good at writing extreme length chapters so sorry to disappoint those who look forward to those, I'll try to up the amount I write and also the level of my writing as best as I can.

Because this is still the start of my story, several facts are still uncertain so there were some corrections made to the previous chapter. These corrections are minor, mostly just my choice of words so don't worry about losing track of the plot.

Anyway, here is the new chapter.

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Chapter 2: The Black Fox

Moving through the crowded street, Thomas noticed the occasional odd stare that were directed at him. He silently congratulated himself on his work as he continued through the street. Since Nvara's visit, Thomas was finding quite a few people who were able to sense his lack of magic aura when he actually looked properly. In retrospect, he should have known there would be a few more exceptional people. In the days that followed his discovery, he had begun working on a cloak to project a magical aura in his place, now strapped around his shoulders. The conversations he overheard as he went about his usual shopping have informed him of the dangers for a squib walking around a magical area. Being a muggle, he was in even more danger. The prospect of being hunted as easy prey for local vampires was quite annoying, as far as Thomas was concerned.

Spinning down a side street to visit the Australian Gringotts, Sydney branch, Thomas noticed another keen observer, this one a goblin who Thomas had once bumped into, staring unashamed at him. Nearing the goblin, Thomas decided the short fellow could tell what projected the power, given the amount of attention that was directed at the cloak. Moving towards an empty booth, Thomas withdrew his vault key and presented it to his attendant. The old goblin, well, Thomas thought he was old, took his key without a word and ushered the two of them through several thick sets of doors. Having gotten used to the unmanned carts, Thomas slipped into his seat and closed his eyes.

With his eyes closed, the echo from the cart gave Thomas a clear picture of the layout of the bank. Thomas turned his head off to the left and heard the roar of one of the dragons which resided underground. The goblins would kill Thomas if they ever found out his knowledge of the bank interior from his abnormally perceptive abilities. The picture which had been established since his first trip into the underground tunnels were so detail, Thomas would have been able to find his way out faster than the goblins themselves, given the speed with which goblins could run. Knowing that they were near his vault, Thomas kept his eyes closed and waited until the cart stopped before opening his eyes. The heavily bolted door that held his money and items swung open with the turn of the key.

Darting inside and closing the door for some privacy, Thomas took out a length of rope and a bag of powder from under his cloak. Putting both ends of the 10 metre long rope together, he then proceeded to sprinkle dark red powder at the ends. Laying the loop flat on the floor, Thomas drew a dagger from his belt and prodded his finger, allowing a drop of blood to land on the red powder. All at once, colour shimmered into existence, showing a room full of items, most hidden under pieces of cloth.

Thomas released a sigh at the working portal. Gringotts was not an easy place to create a portal, and if it works in Gringotts, the portal would work at most other places. Dropping down through the portal, Thomas found himself lying flat on the floor. Another design flaw. The portal really needed to have a gravity inverter or some form of portal entry correction device. While Thomas strained his mind to form a logical device to incorporate into his design, his body began moving several of his priceless inventions next to the portal.

After 10 minutes of moving about, Thomas returned to the sizable pile of inventions he planned on leaving in the vault. Lifting one which clearly resembles a dart gun, he took a calculated leap through the portal, landing perfectly on the stone ground of his vault. Looking around the dull grey cell, Thomas picked the far corner to place the weapon. Moving back and forth, Thomas slowly moved all the items to suitable areas, weapons in the back left corner, potions in the right back corner, everything else shattered in seemingly messy heaps.

Giving a last look at the vault and the other side of the portal to check everything, Thomas then pulled the ends of the portal rope apart, the view of the room dissolving in an array of colours. Getting out of the vault and back into the cart, Thomas continued to work on solutions to his portal's flaw, dismissing most ideas as too space consuming and eventually arriving back at his initial idea, soaking the rope in a suitable potion.

XXX

By four in the afternoon, Thomas had quite a lot of shopping bags hanging off each arm. The inconvenience of being unable to resize his shopping with a wave of magic had never really bothered the black hair teen, but sensing the stares he was receiving, Thomas really was beginning to feel annoyed. Deciding to dispose of his shopping with his portal, seeing as the alternative of taking off his cloak was getting less desirable the darker it became. Spotting an empty store, Thomas slipped in and opened his portal, dumping the shopping in quickly and closing the portal, all before the shop owner appeared behind the counter.

"Do you require a wand, boy?" Thomas laughed heartily as he heard that. Turning around to face the shopkeeper, he was shocked to see the shopkeeper undisturbed by his apparent outburst of laughter.

Thomas got his emotions under control and after considering the older man with greying hair, decided to grace him with an answer. "I can't do…"

"I can make wands with specific uses, young … squib." Thomas' eyes narrowed at the delay, noticing each wrinkle of the shop keeper's serious face, his dull grey eyes staring right back at him. Feeling threatened by the second most magically sensitive person he had ever met and wondering whether his cover may have been blown, Thomas reprimanded himself for becoming too arrogant and confident of his inventions, vowing to take more care from now on.

Suddenly realising what was said, Thomas forgot about the dangers of discovery and instead focused on the new opportunity. The ability to do magic set into a wand was very tempting, but he knew enough to understand the wand only worked as a channel, he himself would still need to provide the magic power. This was not what was slowing Thomas' response though, seeing as he had long found a way to "borrow" other people's powers. The potions he slipped into others' drinks had ensured he had a temporary tie, established between the drinkers and his magic borrowing orb. The ties lasted until the potions run their courses out of the bodies of the drinkers. No, what was taking up Thomas' thoughts was how he could learn the knowledge of creating wands with specific use. Calculating the different possible answers to whether he may learn of the owner's techniques, what struck Thomas as most problematic was if the production required magical power and magic channels. Deciding it was no use guessing at techniques he had not even the faintest idea about, Thomas asked as directly as possible. "Would it be possible for someone like me to make my own?"

The shop owner looked the teen up and down, his eyes occasionally pausing on the white clock still drabbed over Thomas' shoulders. "Hard to say, but I wouldn't say it was impossible."

Thomas saw the unspoken words that followed the response on the man's face, 'but you're not going to teach me how.' Having guessed at this answer, Thomas didn't even react, choosing instead to walk up to the counter and examined the single wand on display. The man's ability to make wands was reflected by the wand, the perfect smooth surface radiating the sweet scent of power. Thomas closed his eyes and felt the magic in the room gather around the wand, his half developed magical senses informing him the strong connection between the wand and its creator. No doubt the display wand was the shop owner's, with its ability to gather the stray magic in the shop where the old man's heart and soul was.

Snapping out of his trance at the slight cough from the man, Thomas gave his answer to the original question. "I don't think I need one thank you, I just wanted to have a look at your display." Giving a farewell nod to the owner, Thomas sighed at the missed opportunity to examine the specific wands, knowing if he failed to call up magic energy his cover of a squib would be blown completely, if the old man had not already known.

Stepping back into the now nearly deserted street, Thomas made his way back to the inn which wizards and witches used to enter the magical area. A flash of red light caught his attention. Thomas felt an area type spell pass by from the source of light and twisted his head about to determine the effect. Interestingly, everyone nearby who should had seen the light, still went about what they were doing, including a vampire who failed to notice his prey, Thomas, sneaking a glance at him.

Processing this information, Thomas putted on an extremely abnormal burst of speed, easily leaving his slow hunter behind. Completely forgetting his previous vow to be more careful with a slight smirk at the confused and shocked expression on the pale face of the vampire, Thomas bounced quickly towards the source of light. Given his reaction and the others' lack of reaction to the blinding light, the spell must have been one to redirect the attention of magical beings away from the source. Reaching the source of light about 1 kilometre away in 10 seconds, Thomas could only stare in awe.

Before him stood an extremely magnificent black fox with two swinging white-tipped tails, its half a metre long body simmering in the white fog emitted from its body. Spotting a few wizards and a witch with dazed expressions and nets scattered all around the area, it was obvious that the burst of magic was the fox's defence against these people.

The young fox sniffed the air, catching Thomas' scent. The teen relaxed his pose in response, giving the fox a clear view of his unarmed hands. Watching the fox examined him, Thomas caught sight of another wizard creeping behind the fox. As the other man raised his wand, Thomas immediately kicked at a stone lying on the floor, hitting the man in the head with pinpoint accuracy.

Thomas felt searing pain across his chest as his sudden movement spurred the fox into attacking him. The claws were most likely poisoned, his body heated in response to the invasion of foreign chemical. Struggling to pull out a vial of phoenix tears which he had bought a few days earlier, he suddenly felt the weight of a furry tail on his chest. Slowly he sensed the poison leave him, returning enough feeling to his fingers to pull out the vial, carefully dripping a drop of tear on his wound.

Putting the vial back in its rightful place, Thomas looked up from where he had been bowled over, coming face to face with the cub. The cub looked at him with silver eyes, its tails waving around in a hypnotic pattern. As the wet nose nudged Thomas in the chest, he returned the gesture and glided his hands across the silk smooth fur, marvelling at the creature's body. One of the tail, as long as the rest of the body, curled over and tapped Thomas in the face and he felt a connection established.

_Thank You. _Thomas swung his face left and right to locate the source of the sound, but nobody near were conscious. Knowing instinctively then who the voice had belonged to, Thomas replied back with his voice.

"You are welcome." Thomas thought the fox smiled, though it was hard to tell. Feeling particularly good about saving the little guy, Thomas got up and cheerfully waved good bye to it, only to find the fox following the teen. Suddenly not knowing what to do, Thomas kneeled down and caught its head, looking deeply to grasp its intention. Despite his ability to read human expression, Thomas was clueless when it came to a fox's. His confusion must have shown on his face because again, a tail flicked up to pat Thomas on the head.

_What's wrong? _This time, Thomas could tell it wasn't speech, but thought which he was hearing. Clearing his mind like he usually did in meditation, Thomas tried projecting his thoughts across the temporary link he felt.

_Um, why are you following me?_

_Because you saved me._

_You don't need to pay me back, go back to your family._ An image of a caged black fox flashed across Thomas' mind, its meaning clear as day. The image was followed by others that had Thomas speechless in awe. The cub had escaped when he grew his second tail, power erupting from the growth breaking the magical lock that kept its prisoner. Thinking deeply to myths and legends that he had read, Thomas knew what he was seeing. The fox was a nine-tail fox, a creature of the Asian regions. It was most commonly known by its Japanese name, Kyuubi, because of manga and anime like Naruto.

Thomas shook his head, realising he still had to give an answer to the thought. _Well, you can follow me if you want, but I don't know much about looking after you. I think you know by now but I am a muggle._ Sensing the slight confusion, he added, _a non-magical human._

What came back was a sense of happiness at acquiring a friend. The fox promptly leaped into Thomas' arms and licked his face.

Feeling happy about making a friend as well, Thomas surveyed the surrounding with the cub. The hunters, obviously the fox's captors, were mostly still standing there with dazed expressions, the exception being the one Thomas knocked out. Catching one of the swishing tail and bringing it to his face, he thought.

_Can you undo the enchantment? _The cub nodded uncertainly. The magic must had been accidental decided Thomas, the effect on the people in the main street was proof of that. Here in the empty resident area, the hunters obviously had an overdose of the notice-me-not magic.

Bringing forth the rope portal and sprinkling red powder at the ends, the teen held the rope up this time before dripping blood from his wound earlier at the ends. The fox sniffed curiously as the portal opened for the third time today. The room with all the scattered shopping came into focus.

Giving his new friend a mental command, the fox broke his spell as Thomas hopped in through the portal. The portal closed as Thomas, gripping one end of the rope, tugged the whole length through the portal. Letting out a sigh of relieve at the successful passing of multiple beings through his invention and the new closing technique of the portal, Thomas turned his mind on to other worries, mainly family and school.

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Well, that was quite a bit longer than the first chapter. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter. If readers don't mind, I would love to hear what you think of the story. I am trying hard to make Thomas not all powerful so please tell me if you think he may be too powerful. For the people who had read Miranda's stories, I plan to make his physical ability quite a bit better than most, if not all of the teachers, though he should still be quite weak since the teachers and students all have impressive magical abilities.

The Kyuubi had always been a pet/friend/familiar that I want Thomas to have because, well, take a guess why. (Tip: It has a large store of magical energy.) Anyway, it would be someone like Sygra from "A Second Chance at Life", though a whole lot younger and more child-like.

Look forward to the next chapter where Thomas would be finding the school.


	3. Chapter 3: Calm before the Storm

Author's Rant:

Finally got the third chapter done. I had quite a bit of things on my plate so I was a tad slow with the new chapter but don't worry, the chapter is a fair bit longer than the last. I had to double check some facts with Miranda's story so that I can give life to existent characters. I hope you readers would like Terence's new friends.

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Chapter 3: Calm before the Storm

Thomas laughed heartily as Rex, the two tailed young Kyuubi leapt on his shoulders. Having decided that he was going to leave his old life behind, Thomas thought he might as well change a few things to his liking. Medium length white hair clashed with black fur as blue eyes examined the reflection in the mirror. The new look that he had acquired still retained some of the old features, mainly the young boyish face which no amount of ageing potion had removed.

Thomas, now known as Terence Creek, frowned at the memory of the countless attempts to give himself a more mature look, it was enough that he was shorter than most. Continuing his inspection, Terence moved Rex's furry tails to reveal the silver chained necklace with a heavily enchanted blue diamond. A black and white checker hoodie and comfortable black jeans hid Terence's well-toned body. Terence grimaced at the thought of the countless ruined clothing which had taken to perfect the scent, heat and sound removal potions which his current outfit had been soaked in. His shoes were also dipped in potions, these ones removing footprints and magical trails, an altered version of the ones used on his black fingerless gloves.

_You look incredible. _Rex, the cub thought happily, rubbing his tails against Terence's face. Terence personally thought the look was really childish but God, it seemed had decided to let only the hoodie escaped his potions unharmed.

_Now I just have to check all my inventions are in working order. Can you smell, hear or feel any heat signature from me? _

_No, but I can feel magically._

_You should, remember the magical tattoos that I dotted on your head. It has a bit of my blood so you and I are connected. _Terence watched as Rex pawed at the spot where the black ink should be, under the black fur. It had been an itchy experience as far as the young Kyuubi was concern, having complained about the procedure for the whole day after.

Removing Rex from his shoulder, he felt the connection established by the blood ink and tried to push his thoughts across. Nothing. The link was too weak at the moment, all that they could do now was sense each other's presence. Hopping the connection strengthens to the desirable point by tomorrow, Terence began testing his other inventions.

Moving his hands up to his face, Terence carefully checked each glove, paying close attention to the nearly invisible black stitches which form intricate runic designs. Closing his eyes, he imagined the magical conductors which he had inserted into his own head, each one made of the Rex's tail fur. This had been one of his latest and most important invention, allowing him some degree of control over activation of his inventions with just thought. Even as Terence swelled with pride at the thought, the memory of the very painful and, now that he's thinking a bit clearly, reckless procedure immediately broke his concentration.

Shaking his head to empty his mind, Terence again began to feel out the flexible conductors. Giving a mental signal accompanied by the opening of his right hand, he felt his dimension glove slowly tearing the fabric of space. Giving another command, a fine dagger slid out of thin air, Terence's hand moving forth to catch it. His dimension glove had worked as well as expected, allowing him to open a gate to another dimension created accidentally by Terence. Another dimension was something inaccessible to most, particularly without the creator's permission. Terence had been surprised to find that elves and demons were creatures of other dimensions, and only they and several other beings had managed to create different dimensions. This invention must definitely be kept secret, wouldn't want creatures he had only ever read in the oldest of books to be threaten. It wasn't that far stretch for dimension opening to rip into other dimensions.

Testing the left glove as well and this time positioning the gate at another area of his dimension armoury, he pulled out a heavy axe and gave it an experimental swing. Rex watched curiously as Terence returned the two weapons in a blink of an eye. Glad of the smooth opening and closing of the dimension glove, Terence tested his last piece of equipment, the blue diamond necklace.

The necklace was not one of Terence's inventions and he had no idea whether his conductors would connect to the blue stone as easily as with the gloves. Following the ripple of signal from the imbedded rods, Terence felt the stone's enchantment responding to the nudge, bringing forth a light blue shield. The magical sphere would deflect magical and non-magical attacks alike but could only be used with the owner's magical power. Rex had kindly swallowed some of Terence's magic borrowing potion so for now, the magical fox was powering the shield. Even though Kyuubis were blessed with an exceptionally large store of magical energy, the currently two tailed Rex had only so much he could spare. Knowing this, Terence attempted to reduce the standard size and even change the shape of the shimmering shield, only to find his control barely able to pull the shield in by an inch. Like the blood tattoo on Rex's forehead, the magic in the Kyuubi fur conductors still needed time to settle in.

Adding this to his schedule of things to work on, Terence cancelled the enchantment. Rex bounced forward at the disappearance of the shield, licking the teen in the face, eager to explore the outside world. Terence gave one last look at the hotel room he had been staying at since the day after meeting Rex, making sure the slight accident with the exploding substances had not damaged anything. He would have preferred to work in his own room but Akren was the start of a new journey, a journey he did not want burdened by his old life. After wiping all traces of his existence from his home, even his family's memories with potions, Terence booked a room at this hotel under the name of Terence Creek and had proceeded to forget and remove his prior life.

Now with only a photo hidden deep in his pocket to remind him of his old life, Terence closed the door and set off with Rex on his shoulder to his new life.

XXX

_Why are we flying on the carpet, couldn't we use the portal you have?_ Rex asked with his usual hunger for knowledge.

_Because in the case of that portal, there are a few problems, the first being it would only open to the house I bought. The second…_

_You mean the place where all your inventions are, you really should have let that potion finish before bringing it through to the hotel room._

_Yes, yes. And I thank you for cleaning up the mess with your magic but could you please stop mentioning the slight mishap. As I was saying, the second flaw is having to know your destination well, preferably with visual reference. The house in Artarmon has not only been imprinted into my memory, but also have enough lingering traces of portal opening to be easily reached. Thirdly, _Terence added quickly seeing as Rex was about to interrupt again, _the distance from here to Canada is not something easily overcome by such a small device. A rope is hardly a sturdy enough material to sustain such long distance travelling. I don't fancy leaving half of my body behind._

The feeling of disgust zipped through their connection before Terence pushed the furry animal back into his backpack. Approaching the counter to hand over the right amount of coins, Terence marvelled at the interior of the carpet flying centre. It looked very much like the Sydney international airport, making him wonder whether the same person designed the two. Receiving his ticket, the teen followed the glowing line that appeared on the floor to his gate, occasionally pushing the energetic Kyuubi cub back down when it popped its head up.

Watching the various carpets come and go, Terence felt strangely excited. This was truly the start of an amazing life, unburdened by the past.

_How do the carpets fly?_ Terence sighed as Rex once again poked his head out from his backpack.

Giving up the task of hiding the cub and hoping other didn't notice his oddly shaped 'dog', Terence replied. _I'm not sure, but I read in a book that the carpets are enchanted while woven, dipped in potions to preserve the enchantment when finished. The enchantment isn't just for flying, there are others like the ones to keep the passengers from falling off._

_Do they also have that bigger inside, smaller outside enchantment you have on your bag?_

_I think so, see, there are a lot of people getting on that carpet. _Terence pointed at the nearest gate where a whole line of people were waiting to board the flight.

_I can't wait to get on!_ Rex practically drooled at the thought of flying and Terence had to stop himself from laughing out loud.

The connection formed by the blood tattoo had indeed strengthened enough to have mental conversations. Terence personally thought the rate of improvement was still too slow but he couldn't deny that it was a normal rate for a strong connections to form. Rex had said he could feel Terence's physical condition, so the desirable effect was taking place, but what Terence truly wanted was the ability to sense Rex's magical reserve. Currently, he could use the Kyuubi's energy as his own but he had no idea about the cub's limit. Actually, it would be more correct to say he could pull out the Kyuubi's energy as control is still beyond the teen's ability.

With his mind filled with problems and solutions, the teen nearly overshot their gate, Rex having to give his master a slight nudge to remind the preoccupied teen.

Getting to the end of the queue, Terence was surprised when one of the ladies at the desk waved him forward.

"Children travelling along can go on first, what's your name?"

Feeling annoyed at the lady but eager to get on, Terence gave in to being treated as a thirteen/fourteen year old. He was technically still a child. Sometimes, it was easier to just accept the fact that most people didn't treat him as a sixteen year old young adult.

Stepping on the apparently empty floating carpet, Terence couldn't help but act like Rex, jaw dropping at the luxurious interior. Comfortable armchairs lined the magically expanded space, some filled with adults wearily watching kids raced between the seats. Looking back, Terence could see the people outside though they couldn't see him. He had a lot to learn and many secrets to uncover, the world of magic was just too amazing.

Choosing a spot at the end right at the edge of the carpet, Terence's mind drifted off into space as he pondered what type of enchantment was used for the expansion. What he knew from books was limited but he thought it might be thread magic since he could feel a tingling sensation at his feet.

Lost in thought, Terence nearly fell out of his seat as the carpet lurched up with surprising speed. He shook his head as he felt rather than heard Rex's exhilarated bark, watching amusingly at the other less fortunate passengers who had tumbled out of their chosen armchairs. He relaxed into his armchair and enjoyed the view as his old life disappeared along with his home country.

XXX

The scent of freshly baked bread tickled Terence's nose as he travelled down the busy street. Like in Australia, the Canadian magical community was bustling with casually dressed humanoids with the occasional four legged beings weaving in and out. Rex, peaking out of his backpack, was commenting on a pair of centaurs who were enjoying breakfast, having never seen one in his life.

Terence was just as interested in the different groups of beings in the area, though unlike Rex, he was observing out of the corner of his eyes. There were quite a few fae types around which Terence had never seen, the most spectacular one being a green humanoid which must had been a dryad. Faes are magical humanoids. The dryad is a forest based fae with ability to command a set type of plant, Terence recalled from a book on faes.

Reaching a hotel named The Black Unicorn, a small but seemingly cosy building, the teen walked in, only to stagger with his hands to his head. Pain erupted from Terence's mind and the teen quickly went about imagining a solid wall to block out the obvious telepathic bombardment. With the image of each brick sliding into place around his mind, the teen felt the pain lessened. Moving cautiously to the dining room, Terence immediately spotted the source of his pain.

A woman around his age with dark brown hair was arguing with a man with light blonde hair. Both being with abnormally pale skin were shouting loudly, their mind magic mirroring their voices, bouncing off everything in the room.

"You think that gives you the right to…"

"We are vampires, we do not bow down to prey. Those guys…"

"What makes you think…"

Terence watched the two vampires making increasingly violent gestures. He had no idea what this argument was about and the teen didn't really care. His head was ringing like hell after the telepathic blast and all he wanted was to sleep it off.

Walking up to the counter, Terence began paying for his board and lodging, keeping a wary eye on the pair but ignoring the background noise and keeping his mental walls erected against the stray telepathic jabs. Feeling a physical tap on his shoulders, Terence turned to find himself facing a furry face. Backing up to better observe the stranger, Terence noted the markings on the fae's body.

"What do think about those two, huh?" The cheetah fae, based on the dark markings, jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the vampires.

"A rowdy pair. What had them so fired up?"

"Vampire slave business."

Looking around the slender fae body, Terence saw quite a few pissed off mortals standing behind the female vampire. From the shouting match, it would seem the blonde blood sucker was the one pissing everyone off. Deciding he cared more about getting a good night sleep than watching the useless match, Terence returned his attention to the fae, only to find him sniffing in Terence's direction.

"What are you doing?"

"Are you a muggle?" Terence gave a slight nod, noticing all sound ceased at the growled question. Most of the customers here must be going to Akren, Terence thought guardedly, eyes flickering quickly to gauge the situation.

"Did you enter here by yourself?" Again, a small nod. The room seemed to grow even quieter at the second response. Feeling a bit bold as nobody seemed ready to attack him, Terence decided to grace the listeners with an explanation, only to find himself pinned against the wall by a pair of strong, cold arms. The blonde vampire who had been hidden from Terence's line of sight behind the cheetah fae had apparently reacted violently at the fact though, Terence was sure the others were just curious.

"What is your name and how did you get here?"

"My name is Terence. I was about to enlighten everyone about my, ahem, situation before you tackled me. So get off me!" Terence thought he could smell fear mixed with the scent of shock from the man but was more concerned with trying to avoid crushing Rex, who was sleeping in his backpack.

"A magic-less mortal such as you have no right to talk back to a vampire." White fangs gleamed as the man pressed harder against Terence. Not wanting to cause any trouble now that the whole room had focused their attention on them, Terence shrugged.

"Look, I really just want to sleep," yawned Terence, though that was all an act to cover his cautious analysis of his opponent. Truly he was a bit shock by how much stronger vampires were compared to humans, but if Terence was to choose between him and the parasite, he thought he was only a bit weaker physically and definitely more agile.

"You have no right to be here, you need to be with a magical being to stay in the area."

Terence listened with half closed eyes contrary to his fully alert and vigilant state of mind.

"Actually, if you are along, you could become my slave. What do you say?"

Terence looked at the murky yet glistering eyes of the vampire while closing down his mind from foreign magic. The man struck up a threatening pose, daring him to answer no. Feeling the least bit intimidated by the man now that he was sure of his chances, Terence shook his head.

"You really think you have a choice?"

Annoyed at the man for numerous things, the teen was just about to fight back when magic separated the young vampire from the enraged mortal.

"You two should wait till we're on school ground before fighting. We won't want to disturb the locals." Terence stared at the newcomer, a man with shockingly red hair and pale, almost colourless blue eyes. His hands were covered in threads, some of which coiled up his arms and disappeared under his black shirt. Sensing the magic around the man, Terence decided the guy was one of the professors.

"I am professor Stiali," confirming Terence's speculation. "You're lucky I was the one here to hand you all – well, something similar to a portkey which would allow non-students like you guys to enter the school."

Terence noticed that only a fraction of the people in the pub were paying attention to the red head, the others all having returned to what they must had been doing before the vampires' shouting match. Letting his mental walls down a bit, he could barely sense the workings of powerful charms to divert attention of the non-Akren-to-be people. Looking around, Terence could see about six others excluding himself listening to the professor.

"Take these and get ready to depart at eight tomorrow morning. I suggest you get into groups before activating the device if you plan on surviving." Professor Stiali, threw each person a colourful marble and walked briskly out the room. Turning at the door, he added, "I hope I have the pleasure in teaching a few of you thread magic."

The heavy cloak of magic disappeared with Professor Stiali. Each student inspected their own marble, excepted for a few who were staring at Terence. Ignoring them, Terence dropped his marble into his pocket and slipped away from the blond vampire.

Just before opening the door to his room, another hand clasped around the knob. Recognising the owner of the furry hand, Terence gave a loud sigh and turned towards the cheetah fae, only to find himself facing the female vampire arguing before as well.

"My name is Roy Farga and this is Sasura Lestro," the cheetah fae said, pointing at himself then the brown hair beauty. "We were wondering if you would join us in forming a group, um…?"

"Terence Creek, and only a group of three?"

"Well there is that group limit." Terence recalled the letter with details about the school entrance 'test', focusing on the paragraph with information about group size and the portkey activation.

"I guess, but I think we can try having a bigger group, worse that could happen is breaking up into two smaller groups."

"Yea well, I don't think we can convince the others," Sasura added, "The slave trader boy got the others three frighten with his stories about the family business."

Terence looked at Sasura, secretly happy that the girl was at least the same height as him. Keeping his emotions hidden the boy just raised an eyebrow.

"The other three mortals are afraid of the blondie who pinned you to the wall."

Nodding tiredly, Terence knew the others have lots of questions concerning his muggle situation. Opening his mouth to invite them in to talk about the doubtlessly long topic, he was surprised when they stopped him.

"You don't have to tell us anything if you don't want to." Roy added, "Every one of us have secrets so don't worry Terence."

Feeling grateful to finally being able to sleep off the telepathic headache, the teen gave a sleepy smile. "We'll meet up downstairs at seven than, hopefully some others would have arrived than."

"I think most others are at the other hotel across the street, we can go there tomorrow to see if any will join us. Good night Terence" Terence greeted the two good night as well then retired to his room. Finally, rest.

XXX

The next morning, Terence, Roy and Sasura met up and walked together to have breakfast at the hotel across the street. Terence caught the death glare the blonde vampire shot his way when he walked off with the other two.

"Is that guy afraid of you guys?" Asked Terence, catching the slight fearful twitch of the male vampire surrounded by three mortals.

"Tyson? Of course." Sasura grinned, fangs glistering in the early sunlight.

"Those other three aren't really afraid of him, are they?"

"Actually, they are." Roy interrupted, giving Terence a critical stare. "Tyson may not be a fearsome vampire, but do remember you mortals – except for you it seems – enter Akren with little knowledge about physical fighting. Tyson can probably overpower them in an instant."

Terence coughed, given the speed Tyson had shown yesterday, that vampire was not fast. Roy and Sasura caught his reaction and both grinned. "We knew you weren't normal. Muggle or not, you didn't even smell remotely scared yesterday, though you might be a bit young."

Terence raised an eyebrow at the cheetah fae. The three of them were probably near the same age but like always, Terence had appeared their junior. "I am nearly seventeen you know?"

"Look more like you just hit puberty." Terence shook his head as the other two laughed loudly. There was just no end to people making fun of his looks.

_But you do look young Terence._

_Thanks Rex._ Terence thought sarcastically.

"Well hello there, nice of you to finally come up." Sasura cooed at Rex as he stuck his head out of the backpack. Rex purred at the attention as both Sasura and Roy took turns scratching the cub behind the ears while Ternce pondered how good their senses were.

_Keep your tails a secret for the while being._

_Sure, Terence!_

Reaching the hotel, Terence opened the door to find a brightly lit room with multiple booths. Groups of soon-to-be-students sat with each other, discussing the trial they would soon undertake. Spotting only one other like them by herself, the trio went to greet her.

Feeling the seductive aura emitted from the woman, Terence immediately knew she was a Veela. No other female could give out that strong pull to male of all species, her silver blonde hair framing a sharp defining cheek with rosy skin. Terence snapped himself out of her spell and found Roy, slightly affected by the power, sauntered up to the tall Veela. Sasura just sniggered.

"Hey girl, my name's Roy. What's yours?" Sasura pushed the male in the shoulder and took over.

"Sorry about that. My name is Sasura and this is Roy and Terence. We are going to get to school together, would you like to join us?"

The girl smiled, "I would love to. Name's Katie Harrier. Incidentally, I thought you have to be fifteen to get into Akren." Terence face-palmed at the first question of their new teammate, as the other two burst into laughter.

"I am sixteen damn it." Causing a new round of laughter even from Katie. Terence smiled secretly at the other three, hopefully they would become great friends.

xxxxx

Please Review! Pretty Please with a cherry on top!


	4. Chapter 4: Getting to School

Author's Rant:

I had been really busy with starting uni and all but yea, everything had settled down so I had returned to the story. I've made numerous corrections to the old chapters and this chapter had been completely rewritten. I hope you all like it. Special thanks to my new uni friends who had relentlessly encouraged and pushed me (Literally) into continuing the fanfic. Please enjoy! :)

xxxxx

Chapter 4: Getting to school

"You're scared of rats?" asked Katie hysterically.

"Not rats, dirty rats! You know, the ones that carry all those diseases and what not!" shouted Roy, his fur did nothing to hide his reddening face. Sasura and Katie both collapsed laughing and even Terence failed to hold back his amusement, snickering while avoiding eye contact with the cheetah fae.

"At least I took care of it," grunted Roy in annoyance. Sasura smacked him in the head as Terence fell silent. The three non-humans shared a desperate look before moving along.

Depression was slowly eating at Terence as the teen followed behind his group. This was the seventh obstacle that stood in their way, admittedly having a rat as an opponent was not the most impressive thing, but it was a boggart, and Terence had again been unable to conquer the obstacle. Looking back at where the boggart had decided to surprise the group, Terence was beginning to wonder whether he belonged in this world.

At first, there was the Devil Snare trap. The twisting vines of the dangerous plant were buried across their path, snagging Katie when she stepped above it. The quick conjuring of magical flames on Sasura's part took care of the plant. Afterward, a series of other encounters with magical creatures of weak varieties similar to the boggart tested the group's knowledge on basic spells. That was a very easy section of the path as far as the vampire and faes were concern but for Terence, it was a very loud reminder of his place, or lack of, in this world.

Terence was beginning to feel pretty useless when the path suddenly ended at the bottom of the cliff. Spotting the path continuing at the top of the cliff, he had quickly threw a thick coil of rope with a hook attached, only to find the rope disintegrated the moment it made contact with the cliff face. Terence then had to watch dejectedly as the others tried different spells which all dispersed on the cliff. He stayed silent as the trio levitated him up after each magically lifted themselves up with the exception of Katie, who flew up in her winged form. Even with his head down in shame, Terence still caught the odd looks his fellow group members shot at him when they thought he wasn't looking.

With the boggart that had just crossed their path, it had basically proved that he did not belong. Terence released an unhappy sigh as he wondered what his partners thought about him. From the way they kept glancing at him, it was safe to bet they didn't want him to be here.

Don't be sad Terence, I'm sure there are lots of things you can help with later.

Thanks Rex, but you know I'm out of ideas. Most of my non-offensive inventions revolves around muggle electronics and have all gone haywire here. The other inventions I would like to keep secret, they are all way too powerful to just show off with. Terence had tried unsuccessfully to turn on his modified notebook in order to identify the creatures and plants they came across. So feeling down, the teen had decided to just collect everything magical in order to do something. At times like this, he wished he had invented some less powerful offensive items.

"Let's take a break before we keep moving. I think we need it." Terence looked in front where Roy stood, pointing at the narrowing ledge which was their path. Leaning over the ledge, he was surprised to see how far up the mountain they were.

As the others sat down and started pulling out food and drinks, Terence moved back towards the cliff wall and collected a dull blue flower which grew from the cracks of the wall. Putting the plant with the roots in a tiny test tube he carefully placed it in his bag.

"Do you think he's gonna be alright?" asked Sasura, her dull, yet glistering eyes never leaving the white hair boy picking at a magical variety of weed.

"I don't know, but he certainly is useless. I thought yesterday, seeing how arrogant he was that he would be pretty good." Roy answered, barely hiding his annoyance at the short boy.

"Stuff you! You knew full well he's a physical fighter before we even asked him to join us. And it's not like he didn't try, nobody told him gun powder doesn't work on school ground."

"But what kind of Akren accepted student can't take care of boggarts!"

"Says the guy who is scared of rats!"

"I'm not af..."

"Stop it you two," interrupted Katie as she glanced nervously at Terence. Luckily, their enraged whispers had been blown away by the wind and the teen continued with his inspection of the plants covering the cliff face. "Didn't you guys say he was a squib?"

Roy paused in his retort as he registered what Katie said. The cheetah fae pounded himself on the head, how could he forget. A squib can't do magic.

"Actually, he said he was a muggle," injected Sasura. The other two stared at the vampire and then at Terence.

"I don't think a squib can get into Akren and you think a muggle managed?" asked Roy.

"I'm not so sure myself. I mean, why would he lie about being a muggle?" Katie listened to Sasura's answer and watched Terence, the kid… teen, Katie corrected herself, didn't stand to gain anything by lying.

"We'll talk about it later. And be nice!" added Sasura as Terence trotted back to the group.

Terence returned to the group but hesitated as he spotted the three magical beings conversing in low voices. He wondered whether the three would attempt to kill him when they have a chance. Terence would normally be confident in his abilities but at this point, on top of facing people who were deemed some of the best, he really could not put his heart into fighting back after having failed in helping out his new friends so many times.

Sitting down and pulling out a sandwich, the four ate silently, each immersed in their own thoughts.

XXX

With everyone, including Rex well rested and fed, it was time to continue their journey. The scenery slowly changed as their path brought them increasingly higher, the scores of eagles flying joyfully overhead merely a few hundred feet above them. Terence silently observed the majestic beasts of the sky, his mind automatically remembering the birds' usual flying altitude, accumulated from multiple books, and quickly calculated their own altitude from their distance below the birds judging from the size and location of the shadows. The complex and long procedure took mere seconds, leaving the teen with his silent contemplation of his depressing situation again. Even the appearance of a Sphinx only wormed a short answer from Terence, though the other three and the Sphinx seemed impressed, judging by the surprised looks from the speedy answer. After the Sphinx leapt off the now only two meter wide ledge, silence felt upon them again until Roy finally cracked.

"Ahhh! Why are we all so quiet, it's so depressing!" The two girls looked at Terence who still trotted unhappily behind the three. Sasura moved back in three long strides and fell into step with Terence.

"You don't have to look so down you know, we're not blaming you. We know you're trying your best." Terence turned his head to see Sasura with her hand on his back. The other two stood ahead, both nodding in agreement.

"I just feel so useless. Heck, I can't even do anything about the boggart, even if I wanted to. I don't know if coming to the magical world is such a good idea anymore." The others shared a concerned look.

"Terence," Roy started after the angry glare from Sasura, "You're not a hindrance, all three of us aren't human and you still managed to keep up with us. This is the magical world, you're bound to face some problems, particularly with the stuff we faced before. A boggart can only be defeated by an embodiment of positive emotions like laughter and that requires a medium such as the Riddikulus spell. Don't stress it, I… I'm sure you'll get your chance later to kick some arse! You did pretty well with the Sphinx." The taller male gave Terence a pat on the back.

Terence mused at how Roy seemed just like an older brother comforting a younger sibling and laughed out loud without thinking. Feeling better, he scolded himself under his breath. The magical world was supposed to be his new challenge and he wanted to give up just because of some little things. Taking a deep gasp of air, he steadied himself before returning to the conversation.

"I hope so. Thank you guys." Extremely glad to have met with these three, Terence vowed to show them what he could do when needed.

Moving forward to take the lead, Terence felt Roy hold him back by the shoulder. Turning back, he saw the others having a non-verbal conversation with slight tilts of the head. Finally, all eyes fell back on Terence as the three made up their mind. Terence tensed as he noted the nervous twitch from the vampire and faes.

"Are you really a muggle?" Sasura asked. Terence looked at all three before answering, body readied to bolt at any sign of aggressive movement.

"Yes." The two females watched Roy as he took a sniff to determine whether the other boy was telling the truth. A small nod confirmed it and the line of questions continued.

"Then how are you still alive this far in the school ground?"

Keeping a neutral face, Terence looked each of his fellows students-to-be in the eye, before answering in a slow but slightly quivering voice, "I don't know."

Silence hung in the air as each individual reflected on information they knew of the school. Akren was a heavily enchanted area and like most places with extensive warding, the amount of muggle repelling charms could easily kill any muggle who entered the vicinity. Terence was not only alive and kicking, but also in perfect health. Wondering what was keeping him alive, Terence saw the others give him a hard stare before shrugging at each other. If even Terence had no idea what was happening, there's no use worrying about it.

The four continued on their chosen path, occasionally pausing so that the group could collect some of the exotic plants which bloomed on the side, or sometimes, on their path. Slowly, the plants which grew all over the place became scarcer as the path at the side of the cliff narrowed. Moving forward, an odd fragrance reached Terence's nose. He reached forward and grabbed Roy's backpack, halting their progress. The two girls behind Terence and Roy both looked at the shorter boy expectantly.

"Can you guys smell something?" whispered Terence. The other three took a deep breath and shook their head.

"Well, I can definitely smell something very sweet, but dangerous. Be careful." Terence stressed the last two words to Roy who was leading. Terence would have moved forward to take the lead but because of the narrow ledge, the group could only travel in a single file with little space to even turn around. It would be bad if they had to run away from a predator. Terence looked back behind to see Katie rolling her shoulders, obviously preparing to fly and help out when needed.

The group crept forward and soon the others picked up on the strange aroma. All three non-mortals immediately began growling at the smell, reminding Terence of predators chasing off others from their territories. Soon, a brilliant round spot filled with red and orange mushrooms appeared in the middle of their path, each mushroom emitting the sweet scent which drew Terence in.

I know what those are! Rex stuck his head out and sniffed. Those or rather that is a meat eating plant.

Images of a teethed plant covered in red mushrooms swallowing a deer whole floated into Terence's mind as Rex recalled memories from his captured days. The plant was one of the many rare and exotic living things which had brought money to his past captors.

"Well that is an odd place to put a man-eating plant." Terence thought aloud. To Terence, the brightly colored patch in the middle of the path reminded him of a red stop sign.

"So that's what it is. No wonder we three aren't taking it well, that smell reeks of a hunting predator." Sasura said as the two faes nodded.

"Should we try a fire spell?" Roy asked, pointing his wand at the plant.

"I wouldn't do that." Another series of images invaded Terence's mind, showing the horrible plant absorbing flames and growing in size. "Try cutting off all the mushrooms, it should become more docile and less keen on attacking. And do collect them after."

Roy changed his poke of his wand into a slash, severing the red mushrooms from the hiding meat eating plant. Summoning the mushroom Roy then conjured a wooden plank above the now brown patch. "Just to be on the safe side."

Leading the way with his wand trained on the hidden plant, Roy shuffled across the plank. The other three followed after the cheetah fae, each happy to have avoided dissolving in acid. Terence scratched Rex behind the ear as the Kyuubi poked his head out. Thanks Rex.

"I told you you're not useless. We would have been plant food if you didn't know that plant was there." Roy inputted. Terence faked a smile, knowing who they should actually be thankful for.

With Katie safely across, the group continued on their way. The narrow path slowly widened as the ground flattened out. Moving cautiously as they approached what could only be considered a forest, the four spread out into teams of two, each moving with the other team in sight. Giant pines with brilliant red-brown bark hid their path in shadow. Their needles, like leaves, scattered all around, further covering the path. Weaving behind the thick trunks, Terence marveled at the sight. Flickering sparks of light which had escaped the thick canopy winking at them like stars in the sky. Looking at Sasura, his partner's silver-grey eyes glistered back in his direction. Turning to his other side, he could see Roy's cat-like orange eyes landed on Katie's neon green ones, before glancing at Terence. Giving a slight nod to indicate everything was fine, Terence continued walking.

Why don't your eyes glow like theirs?

I am a human. My eyes don't glow normally.

Then how can you see in the dark?

Glowing eyes don't mean you can see in the dark. In any case, I trained my eyes and kept them in peak condition, so seeing in the dark isn't hard for me. Don't talk to me now, we might meet other monsters so I need to have my full attention on the road.

I can tell you if something is coming.

Terence's blues eyes scanned their path, and stopped abruptly.

"The path separates into two here." Pointing at the fork, Terence saw the other three pull out their wands and wave them around. Watching Sasura's wand spin around like a compass on the palm of her hand and feeling the other two wands releasing bursts of magic in the two directions, Terence was once again reminded of how useless he was in the magical world. Terence curbed the negative emotion as he saw the others pause in their magic to glance at him, he should be helping, not self-pitying. Promising himself to not let his insecurity show again, the teen quickly took a deep breath and put his right ear against the nearest tree. Closing his eyes to focus on listening for clues, Terence missed the happy exchange of looks between the other three.

"Thank god he is happier." Sighed Roy as the three non-humans communicated telepathically.

"Agree. You can tell he's smart. I bet he is physically better than all of us, not sure about his strength though." The trio stared at Terence's lean but toned muscles. "Probably not a match for us and might not be as fast as you, Roy."

"Guys, I think the right path is a dead end, about… two kilometers ahead."

"How did you get that from listening?"

"Trade secret!" answered Terence, sticking his tongue out playfully. There was no way a vampire and an animal fae didn't know how to determine a dead end by listening to echoes, what they wanted to know was how could he listen to something that far ahead.

"Anyway, we best get a move on, I don't fancy camping in the forest at night." Katie led the way down the left path, the group moving at a quicker pace while still maintaining their vigilance.

As darkness closed in on the group, moonlight lit up the forest ground as the trees began to thin. Reaching the edge of the forest, a plain field could be seen, stretching out across the horizon.

"Let's set up camp here. We'll be able to see anything coming at us from the field and get some cover in the trees. I'm sure we can also catch anyone coming from our back since the forest isn't as dense here."

"Oh goody, my stomach was growling for a while now." Roy explained, patting his tummy to emphasize his point. The other three rolled their eyes, they had been bombarded by the intense growling for more than an hour already.

Setting up the tents took only two quick wave of Katie's wand and a third wave brought forth a controlled orange fire on top of a relatively flat stone. Terence marveled at the flame, watching the flickering flame with no obvious fuel source. Closing his eyes and 'feeling' the flames mentally, the source of fuel could be identified by a thin strand of power from Katie's wand hand. No longer as depressed as before, the teen fell back into his usual calculative self, debating on the ability of magic users to feel where their power were being drained to fuel a spell and whether one can consciously change the drain area. It seems only obvious to Terence that if one can channel their magic through different parts of their body, one should be able to maintain a higher numbers of spells as the pressure the outlet areas are reduced. The line of thought opened up a new idea as Terence contemplated the effectiveness of blocking off a magic user's usual magic outlet, their hands, in order to halt their magic.

Staring at the flames intensely while the chain of thought consumed the teen, Terence failed to notice the others watching him amusingly.

"Hey kid, you're gonna grab a bite?" Roy asked between bites of his sandwich. This jolted Terence out of his trance, growling at the word choice.

"Seriously …"

"Pipe down you two, we don't want to attract any trouble." Sasura intervened.

Letting it go because of the situation, Terence got out his food, hoping that their journey would not be too hard. It was just a hunch but something told Terence that things were going to become a lot more demanding.

XXX

Blue eyes meet glowing orange ones as the two boys felt their wards trigger. After a slight hesitation last night to showing his new friends his inventions, Terence had decided he could trust these people and proceeded to create a few of his many wards before sleeping. The others had been completely surprised by the display of alchemy as Terence went about mixing potions and powders before scattering the product around the two tents in intricate runes. After getting over their shock, the three had joined in with the warding. Now awake from the tingle which had signaled the coming of intruders, Terence was glad to have set up the ward. These intruders are pretty efficient at hiding their presence given neither Roy nor Terence could sense their approach.

Feeling a slight tap against his mental barrier, courtesy of Rex, Terence lowered the barrier, feeling three presences.

We need to move, Katie's thought skimmed across the link.

Too late, they felt one of our wards.

All four dived out of their tents as fire suddenly engulfed the tents. Terence unsheathed his rapier which had been lying next to him, and quickly deflected two spells following the fire spell. Seeing Roy summon their belonging from the tents, Terence immediately jumped forward to help the cheetah fae, blocking a few spells directed at him. Spinning around to see the girls ducking behind a particularly thick tree, Terence and Roy ran over to them, dodging and weaving between trees.

One attacker who must had been a lot quicker than the others suddenly jumped in front of them, a staff spinning expertly in his hand. Terence threw a knife hidden in his left sleeve at the guy who easily deflected the projectile. Not deterred, Terence jumped at the man, rapier swinging down in one fluid strike. The man raised the staff with one hand to block the blade while his other hand pulled out his wand. Roy beat the guy to it though, shooting a quick stunner at him before the man had a chance to chant a spell. Ducking the bombardment of spells again, Terence and Roy resumed their run to the girls.

"What do we do?" Roy asked as he slammed his back against the trunk.

"Well, I think we should run." Katie insisted.

"Agreed!" whispered the others. A sickly yellow light flew at them from their front, immediately eliminating that option. Sasura countered with a stunner, both spell colliding and deflecting into the forest.

"Can anyone sense where they are?" Terence asked. He saw the others shake their head out of the corner of his eyes, already rumbling through his bag for one of his inventions. The others spread out around him, counting on the white hair boy to find a solution to their current predicament. Terence's noticed his friend's position, glad that his show of alchemy, as the others had decided to call it, had earned their trust. Pulling out a silver orb, he threw it up just as the shield dome the others had casted cracked under the spell bombardment. The incoming spells veered upwards towards the orb, one nearly hitting Roy in the chin. The spells hit the orb just as it reached its peak and suddenly winked out.

"Ahhh!" Screams could be heard around them as each of the attackers was treated to their own magic, the force of which had been drastically multiplied to increase the destructiveness. Terence immediately sprinted towards the nearest person, his hand striking the man behind the neck, effectively knocking him out. Three other screams silenced as the others caught on. Within minutes, four men and three women were bounded against a tree.

"Who do you think they are?" Roy asked, pointing at where the seven people were tied up.

"Students?" Terence suggested, "Or alumni?" added Terence as they stared unbelieving at the shredded remains of the rope where their attackers were only a second ago.

"How did they get away so quickly? We took our eyes off them for less than a second." Roy roared, causing both Terence and Sasura to clamp their hands over their ears while Katie gave the enraged cheetah fae a jab.

"Shh! And it doesn't matter, I don't think they were really trying to harm us anyway."

Terence looked at each of them, each spotting a few bruises and cuts but nothing serious. Whoever those people were, they were pros. The feeling of depression crept up slowly but was drowned out by another even greater emotion, excitement. Unlike before, this was a challenge he can handle. Screw the boggart, others can deal with it, if he really wanted to he could just lock it in another dimension. Reaching the level or even surpassing those individuals was his aim, time to regain focus on his original goals.

With the campsite completely trashed and their belonging already with them, the four set off quickly across the field, eager to get away from the forest where they might be ambushed again. The field was a lot denser then it had appeared last night, the tall grass completely obstructing their view.

"Incoming!" screamed Sasura. Sure enough, a massive boulder the size of a minivan flew right at them. The three non-mortals quickly produced a translucent shield, each person holding their wand tightly as the boulder threatened to crack the magical defense. Terence quickly dug into his bag to produce the invention which he had been most keen to use but never yet had a suitable chance. Uncorking a vial of silver liquid, the boy promptly threw it towards the boulder. Just as the boulder burst through the shimmering shield, it was immediately halted by an even brighter silver shield. Unlike the conjured protection, this one sent the boulder flying in the opposite direction upon contact.

Watching the other three stare with open mouths at the extremely effective shield, Terence finally felt he was making himself useful. This shield was something he had wanted to use to show the others his worth. Now that he had got a chance to use it, he knew he had shown he was capable, if only to help out his fellow would-be-classmates in a slightly less magical situation.

Quickly getting over their surprise, the others craned their neck to seek out their attacker or attackers.

"There!" Terence, standing on tip toes looked towards where Roy was pointing. A white blob could be seen running away in the opposite direction to them. Terence's heart jumped at the sight, realizing that a yeck had threw the rock. Before the others even noticed, Terence had raced after the white furry creature.

"Wait!" Sasura shouted too late. Roy on the other hand raced after the teen, certain of his ability to catch the human. While the two girls watched disgruntled but impressed at the two, Roy was completely shocked that his speed did not even begin to compare with Terence's.

Yecks have a strange type of hat which allows its wearer to turn invisible, Terence recalled from one of the many books he had read. Terence ignored the others, too hung up on the sudden chance at invisibility and determined to create another link to the magical world. He was so intent on taking the hat off the yeck, that he had even activated one of his oldest inventions, the 'speed shoes', which multiplies the force of contact with any surface. The poor yeck did not stand a chance against the fast teen, its hat snatched off its hat without it even realizing.

What are you doing Terence? Calm down! Rex's call rang like a gong through Terence's mind, slowing the teen down as the Kyuubi flood the teen's mind with calming thoughts.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing?" Roy shouted angrily as he finally caught up to Terence. Terence turned slowly as he just realized he had again lost control because of his emotions. As Sasura and Katie finally caught up to the boys, they found Terence frozen from overflowing of emotions as Roy continued to reprimand him. When Terence began to gasps uncontrollably though, all three immediately got very concerned.

Terence! Please calm down!

"What is happening?" Katie asked Roy accusingly.

"I don't know!" Roy replied annoyed.

"Come on, you must have seen something…"

Conflicting emotions raged inside him, thoughts echoing in his head, the overload manifesting into searing pain. Terence slowly began losing focus while the other two argued, completely overwhelmed. The last thing he remembered seeing were Sasura's silver eyes before he mercifully blacked out.

XXX

Terence awoke to find the sun has dropped below the horizon and the landscape completely changed. Turning his head, he could see Roy and Katie sitting beside a spell fire.

"Finally awake?" Terence twisted his head the other way and saw Sasura sitting cross legged next to him, Rex sitting contently in her arms. Terence groaned, his head pounding relentlessly as he sat up too quickly.

Are you alright?

Yea, I'm okay Rex.

Thank god. I think the others found out what caused your disorientation. Oh, I think they know about me too. Rex added as an afterthought.

That's alright, I guessed they would have sooner or later. And what caused my emotions to get out of control?

I think you need to ask her. They, or more like she didn't tell me.

"What happened?" asked Terence. Sasura watched him for a few seconds, gathering her thoughts before answering.

"You said you were a muggle, right? Well, I think those muggle repellent charms aren't as useless as we thought. As immune as you are to them, I think the high magic density of this area coupled with the charms was affecting you mentally." Sasura explained, emphasizing the word 'think' to indicate how uncertain her answer was.

Terence stroked Rex absent-mindedly as Rex jumped next to its master. That would make sense, Terence did experience mild headache the first time he ventured into a magical area.

"Hey, you're up."

Terence looked up to see Katie and Roy's relieved faces. Roy looked extremely apologetic and Terence realized he must have been very worried about his shouting before.

"Don't worry about it," Terence said before Roy said a word, "It's my fault I was acting so weird. I should be the one to say sorry. I really don't know what got me so psychotic."

"It is the magic around here." Roy asserted.

"Yea, don't blame yourself." Katie added.

"Well, thanks. It must have been annoying dragging me this far."

Roy snorted. "Don't flatter yourself," he joked, "How hard was performing locomotor on a kid." Terence cracked a smile as Roy earned himself a jab in the ribs. It was comforting to know he made friends who he could trust.

"We just got lucky we didn't meet anything too serious today. I hope you're not going to faint or fly off the handle again." Katie said after a pause.

Terence closed his mind and examined himself mentally. Everything seemed to be back to normal, he was probably safe from the magic now.

"I'll be fine. Sorry for all the trouble, I promise I'll make myself more useful."

"Just don't force yourself." Sasura said, putting her hands on his shoulders. "Just rest up, we will have lookouts tonight so don't worry too much. You can take the last shift."

Terence gave them all a graceful smile and lay back down. Shutting his eyes, the teen pondered about his situation, his mind turning over a few ideas on how he was not that affected by magic. He decided this was a question which would be of uttermost importance to him but as of yet, Terence could come up with no solution. Choosing to sleep on it and hopefully find the answer soon, Terence drifted off to the land of dreams.

XXX

Next morning, after everybody had been well fed, the group headed out across another open field. Rex had been allowed to bounce happily around the four as there was no longer a point to hiding him. Not everybody would immediately recognize him for what he is, a two tail fox was not that uncommon in the world of magic.

Falling back a bit, Terence pulled out the bright white hat he got from the yeck. Feeling at the magic contained in the hat, Terence concluded the hat did not need either a magical channel or magical energy to work. The teen smiled at that. As much as he detested his attitude yesterday, he was glad he got his hands on this handy piece of clothing.

Observing his surroundings, Terence realized that they did not travel very far yesterday because of him, so they probably wanted to speed up their journey. As they quickly made their way through the plain, Terence could sense a being flying towards them.

"Dementors!" growled Sasura. Terence froze at the name. Dementors were soul sucking creatures which were invisible to muggles. This was not something he could take care of. Pulling out his rapier anyway, Terence watched as the others strained their mind to call up happy memories.

A slow but strong chill spread around them, as each began to recall horrible memories. The sadness which Terence was feeling threatened to swallow him up again.

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" A silver cheetah, seagull and hawk burst out of the three raised wands. Terence watched transfixed, at the three very solid animals charge straight ahead where Terence could feel the fearsome power. The chill which had just started to creep up on them retreated quickly, eliciting relieve sighs all round.

Are you alright?

"Are you alright?" Sasura asked concerned for Terence who had been shaking from the encounter. Turning his head to see Rex and Sasura watching him carefully, he gave a slow nod to the identical questions. Rex jumped all the way onto Terence's shoulders and licked his face gently. Sure that the boy was not about to break down like the day before, the Sasura turned her head back towards where Terence assumed the dementors were.

"Well they didn't seem very strong." Roy exclaimed.

"Might have something to do with that." Sasura pointed. All four heads turned towards where their three patronus were, spotting a fourth dull, but never less corporeal wolf racing alongside.

"There must be others ahead of us then." Katie concluded.

All four picked up their pace at that revelation. It was clear everyone were determined not to be last. The trail continued to lead them higher. Occasionally the odd obstacle would cross their path, but nothing really challenging appeared until the late afternoon.

"Look, those guys are fighting a troll!" The group raced forward to assist as they watched a person was sent flying by a swing of a club.

"Stun it together!" screamed a girl with bright red hair.

"It's not working!" screamed another.

Terence surveyed the situation, spotting four people lying in pool of their own blood and only two others from the group standing.

"STUPEFY!" Three jet of red light raced towards the troll as his friends fired the stunners simultaneously. The spells collided with the troll, causing it to stumble. However, the troll appeared to be as awake as before, if not more aggravated. Turning its head on its four new opponents, it gave a mighty roar before sprinting at them.

"Get to the others and sprinkle this powder on their wound. I'll take care of the troll!" Terence shouted, passing three pouches to his friends.

"You sure?" asked Katie, visibly concerned.

"Trust me." shouted the teen as he sprinted towards the troll.

Rex raced alongside its master, firing small balls of fire at the troll, attracting its attention. Terence dug into his bag and took out a crossbow and bolts. Pulling back the string, he chose a plain bolt from the batch of brightly coloured bolts. Taking aim at one of the black eye of the troll, Terence let the bolt lose. To his surprise, the bolt bounced off its eye. Right, magical defense. Taking a black coloured bolt this time, the teen armed the crossbow and watched the bolt fly at the same eye. The troll caught onto the teen's aim, raising its hand in front of his eyes. To its surprise, the bolt pierced nearly all the way through the troll's arm. Terence cursed, he didn't expect the troll to block the shot.

With their distance closing rapidly and Terence no longer having a line of sight at the eyes, the teen gave up on his previous tactic, instead shooting a red bolt at the troll's leg. With an explosion which threw everyone back, the bolt tore a small chunk out of the troll's thick leg. Reaching for a light blue bolt, Terence rolled back on to his feet and fired at the troll's club wielding right arm. Everyone felt the chill as ice froze the gigantic creature's arm, locking it in place just before it slammed down on the slightly disorientate Rex. Jumping up immediately, Terence launched himself at Rex, pulling himself and the young Kyuubi out from under the falling troll.

You could have warned me before shooting that bomb. Rex complained dizzily.

I'm sorry, there wasn't enough time so I just changed my tactic. Terence apologized.

Moving back from the howling beast, Terence watched the troll slowly collapsed, the ice weighing it down and chaining it to the ground. Thank god the exploding bolt managed to lower the magical resistance of the troll, or else the freezing bolt might not have worked that well. Sure that the troll was fully incapacitated, Terence turned around to find his friends and the other would-be-students walking towards him.

"Wow, that was … impressive." Roy said in awe. Terence grinned as the others looked at the troll, lost for words.

"Just returning the favor for carrying me. Now we're even."

"I assume that was magical, not gun powder then."

"Yea. Neat huh?"

Roy patted him in the back, acknowledging his ability. Terence just smiled at the slowly building friendship.

"We best get going, I think we're very near." Sasura said, using her wand to cast a useful little spell to show their altitude.

"Thanks for helping us." The red-head Terence saw before offered her hand. Terence clasped it and offered his and his companion's names.

"I'm Aria, we were looking for the entrance when the troll appeared. I think it is just ahead."

Aria led the way as the two groups made their way up a long, steep, path to reach the desired elevation. Nothing marked the entrance and if it wasn't for the altitude charm, they could easily have walked right past it. As it was, the merged group found themselves facing a sheer drop and the side of a mountain.

"What do you think?" Aria asked after a quick alohomora at the rocky face of the mountain yield no result. Sasura and Katie both gave the wall a thoughtful stare. Roy on the other hand gave Terence a slight nod and grin, before the two leveled their weapons at the wall.

"What are you doing?" screeched Aria even as Sasura and Katie pulled the others away. A shimmering white light and a red bolt shot straight at the wall, everyone ducked after seeing the bolt. With a resounding boom, the resulting explosion ripped chunks of rock from the wall. Allowing the rocks to settle, everyone got up from behind whatever coverage they had dived behind, to see the wall visibly fixing itself.

"Well, brute force is out." Roy stated unnecessarily.

"You think?" screamed a limping boy from Aria's group, visibly shaken from the explosive approach.

"It makes sense to try the obvious approach."

"In what sense was that obvious?"

The bickering continued as Terence moved towards the wall to inspect it. Judging by the wall's recovery, it was apparent that the entrance is right there. Now the problem was getting in. Putting his hand against the wall, Terence closed his eyes and tuned out the others, focusing on the magical signature projecting from the wall. He found was a complex ward, designed to keep others out and regenerated the wall when damaged. Unfortunately his ability to read magic was still weak, with the ward being more complex than the ones he normally come across, it was hard to discover everything about the ward. What he did determine was there were numerous other wards which were not activated at the moment. Evidently the school was not really trying to keep students out, just to test them.

Opening his eyes, he was surprised to find Sasura's silver eyes staring right into his blue ones. Reflectively calling upon his mental shields, Terence gave her a questioning look.

"What did you find?"

"What makes…" Terence stopped himself as he decided it was easier to just accept the vampire's good perception. There was no way she didn't already know what he was doing.

"There is an enchantment for sure but I couldn't read the effect very well. Anyway, who are they?" Terence pointed at another group who had arrived while Terence had been examining the wall.

"Joseph, Ronda, Death, Reaper and Bones." Terence's eyebrows rose at the names. "As you can guess the last three are brothers."

"I know you aren't feeling well because of the magic, but why didn't you use alchemy when we were travelling on the first day?" Sasura asked suddenly in hushed voice.

"I don't have many inventions which would not cause harm to us in the situations we were in. Honestly, I didn't even know if anything I have was going to work. A lot of them certainly weren't working."

As Sasura digested the information, Terence watched as the new group of people walked towards them.

"Hello there," called a skinny guy Terence guessed to be bones, "Do you mind if we have some space to work with the rock wall."

"Be my guest." Terence and Sasura moved aside to watch as the others went about trying spells to reveal or open the hidden entrance. It was truly fascinating to see spells with very different effect directed at the wall, admittedly the wall did not change even under the most powerful of spells. With Sasura providing him with a commentary on each jet of light that flew at the wall, Terence was beginning to see a pattern.

Unnoticeable before because of his own attack, Terence now perceived that destructive spells were all absorbed by the ward. Seeing one student, a werewolf, pour acidic potion on the wall confirmed his theory that physical methods and non-destructive spells were not absorbed in any form, explaining why his bolt could destroy the wall. Wreaking his brain over the implications, Terence tried to remember what he had felt from the ward.

"Stop!" Terence shouted at the others as he watched them fired off several reductos, the red beam of lights merely absorbed and shimmering out of existence. All eyes turned towards him, questioning looks upon their faces.

"I think the ward absorbs destructive spells meant for brute forcing entry. Judging from the fact that it did not absorb the other destructive attacks, it should be a type of ward that uses absorbed magic to protect the entrance. If we could somehow make it open without… hmm… forcing entry, the ward should let up." Terence explained unsurely. The concepts behind magic of such high level was still much a mystery to him, reinforcing his choice to learn about magic at Akren, where else would he learn about high level magic.

"What about the alohomora I used, it didn't have any effect, remember?" Aria inputted.

"I believe the reason is the door isn't locked, just hidden. Maybe if we could pull it out?" Terence said, ending his answer with an uncertain question.

Sasura, Roy and Katie promptly set themselves across from at wall, three wands raised and together, the three tried a simple summoning charm. "Accio!"

The ward flared bright white as it refused to allow its content to be shown. Seeing the successful attempt, others quickly jumped up to assist the three. Terence stood to the side awkwardly while everyone chipped in.

"Hey, aren't you gonna help?" shouted one of the 'Dead' brothers.

"Terence's magic is a bit messed up at the moment, so I wouldn't ask him if I were you." Sasura chimed. Roy and Katie shared a look and grinned. Terence just smiled, relieved. As far as Terence could tell, his three travelling companions were definitely now friends he could rely on.

The torrent of magic which flowed towards the wall made Terence's eyes hurt. Each spell was given enough magic to make the normally invisible summoning charms yellow. Add the constant flare of the ward to hold against the spells, it was truly a dazzling sight.

With two more groups turning up during the summoning marathon, the ward was placed under further strain. Finally with a particular bright burst of light which had everyone covering their eyes, the ward broke. The door appeared slowly, the magic which kept it hidden dissolving away as it ran out of energy.

Pushing against the door with all their might, the door refused to budge, causing everyone to groan. Terence was less discouraged, given this was not a common sight in the muggle world. Deciding to try pulling the door, Terence asked Katie, who was closest to him, for a crowbar. Understanding immediately and doing a face-palm which surprised Terence, given Katie appeared above such actions, she quickly transfigured two rocks into crowbars and set about prying the door open. With a few others following their example, the door finally swung open with a slight creak.

Looking in, they could see a wide tunnel which didn't appeared to have an end. With a few nearly-students lighting their wands, the large group trekked into the long corridor.

"Wait!"

Everyone turned around at the call, to see Tyson alone rushing towards them. Roy, Sasura and Terence's eyes narrowed.

"Where are the others?" Roy growled threateningly.

"The humans? I left them to die of course. They were completely useless as slaves, couldn't even follow orders. Serves them right, they're feeding the dementors now."

Terence and some of the other humans were ready to beat the crap out of the arrogant vampire when Sasura got to him first. With a mighty punch, Sasura sent Tyson off the ridge. The humans stared wide eyed at the act though Terence noticed, the vampires and some of the others were not very surprised.

"Well, he should leave us alone for a while." Sasura stated like she didn't just punched Tyson off the mountain.

"He'll live." She added after spotting the humans' surprised faces, though Terence heard her uttered under her breath, "Unfortunately."

With most students shrugging at the explanation, the group continued down the corridor. At the end of the passage, a door blocked out the waning evening sun. Terence clasped his hands nervously as Roy, in the lead, pushed the door open to reveal their new school.

xxxxx

What do you all think? I know everything at the moment is just a reflection of Miranda's story but I promise you the fanfic will split off soon from Miranda's ideas and hopefully show my ideas which I just can't wait for everyone to see! I've thought up of a plot so I'm very happy at the moment though it seems to be a bit weak. Hopefully I can refine that idea to an exciting one by the time a few more chapters has passed.


	5. Chapter 5: Akren

Heya! I Hope you all enjoy this chapter cause it took me a while to write it. I will start updating hopefully fortnightly from now on as my life seemed to have settled down a bit. (The reason this chapter is up so quickly was because it was nearly finished when I uploaded the 4th.) There may be a few mistakes here and there as my usual beta reader hasn't went through this but it shouldn't be too bad (I hope).

xxxxx

Chapter 5: Akren

A massive array of colour assaulted their senses as each student stared amazed at their new home. They were standing on a trail halfway up a mountain, one end leading into the misty tops of the range, the other leading down into a massive valley. Numerous other mountains surrounded the massive valley, the peaks of all of them high enough to be covered by thick white layers of snow. The students spread out, each moving around to drink in the magnificent sight. Terence saw the school located halfway down the valley which stretched out further than he would have thought possible so high into the mountains. The school built into the mountainside was impressive, Terence could just make out the details if he strained his eyes.

Knowing he would soon be able to observe the school close up, Terence let his eyes wander around the valley instead, watching the various magical creatures graze, hunt, frolic and fly around the valley. It was truly a sight to behold, Terence thought, watching a black dragon dive down into the trees and then rise again with some sort of wolf in its grasp, flying off into the distance where the mist from the geysers and hot springs swallowed the pair. Before he could fully admire the rivers which snaked all around the valley connecting everything from lakes to hot springs, the chattering of hoofs pulled out from his awe-struck position next to the trail edge.

Elegant black, white, silver and gold coaches drawn by animals which appear at first glance to be huge black horses with red manes until a few of them snorted fire. Terence hid his surprise, there certainly were a lot of animals which he had never heard of, let alone seen within the valley.

"Fire horses. They're pretty rare but I heard the school has a lot of them. They don't have a preference between the different magical species so they make really good steeds for the school." Sasura whispered in Terence's ear.

The fire horses were truly majestic, sleek black coat with flaming manes and tails. Terence went up close to one and patted it gently, running his hands through its mane. The mare which Terence was patting snorted, a small cloud of fire escaping from its nose. Suddenly, one of its manes flared up, causing Terence to pull his hands back in surprise. Sasura jumped in instead, quickly conjuring a pair of silver scissors and cutting the burning mane off the mare. She then promptly placed the mane, which had stopped burning and started glowing ember, into a silver box she had again conjured.

"Here, fire horse tail hair and mane can only be collected when they are shedding. When it burns, just cut the hair from the base and keep it in silver until used." Terence accepted the box Sasura handed him, mentally brainstorming the type of potions and invention he could do with this new material. Still deep in thought he followed Sasura into a carriage with Roy and Katie after the fire horse gave him a slight nudge with its head.

Terence, like the other three, stuck his head outside the window, watching the fire horses raced along the trail. The trip was quite short considering the distance but there was still ample time to admire the now dark valley. The plants here were clearly magical, there were an abundance of light glowing all throughout the valley. Terence could just make out one of the unicorn herds grazing in one of the plains. So it was true that young unicorns are gold in colour.

The school came into view as the coaches reached the point where the trail flattened out onto the valley. Instead of following the trail which took them towards the end of the long valley, the fire horse turned into the mountainside where the school was. Terence was again left dumb-struck as he admired the school's design. The school was built into the mountain, the whole setup looking ridiculous from a muggle point of view, though Terence had to admit the system made the school into a safe fortress. Even so, there were wonderful designs craved all over the place which also gave the school an elegant feel. Terence wasn't fooled, the designs were just as much part of the school's defence as anything else, the runes providing wards of numerous varieties which Terence had no way of distinguishing.

Following the path, the coaches went underneath the school and into an area with stables. Everyone got off and looked around, though Terence decided to go back to the mare he was patting to treat it with a slice of apple he had started munching on in the coach. The mare ate the piece happily as the intricately designed doors leading into the school swung open. The students all turned towards the entrance where several people walked out. Leading the group was the headmistress, Nvara. With her long white hair tied back in two braids, a deer hide jacket hiding an armoury worth of weapons and knives visibly tucked into a heavy set of black boots, Nvara was radiating with power and experience.

"Welcome to Akren. I am Nvara Aelfly, headmistress of Akren Mountain School of Magic. Those of you injured will go see our school doctor though I should think you already know you will be required to heal the minor injuries." Terence heard one of the students with a broken leg groaned at that and noticed each teacher blinking at the response. Probably not the best first impression, and if he couldn't even heal something this minor, according to what Terence knew about Akren that student might not even make it past the first year. Nvara carried on, completely ignoring the groan. "You will have tonight and tomorrow to pick your classes and complete the basic test to enter into your desired classes. You join the other students at dinner the day after."

The students all followed the others teachers towards the infirmary as the headmistress had left immediately after the speech to tend to the fire horses. Terence gave the mare he had taken a liking to one final pat before joining his fellow classmates. At the entrance, his group of four along with a few uninjured others were stopped by one of the teachers. The teacher had dark silver hair with pale green eyes which were showing a mix of emotions. Studying his expression as the man leered at them, showing a silver front tooth, Terence could discern doubt and disapproval.

"I'm Steve Marluck, tactics and battlefield scenarios class, muggle weapons trainer, and Occlumency teacher. You guys are quite the slow bunch aren't you? We were expecting you to arrive before noon. I think you guys are the second slowest year by far to have gone through this route."

"We did meet a fully grown troll!" exclaimed one of the students.

"And nobody asked you guys to engage it!" Snapped the tall man. Personally Terence agreed with Marluck, they could have gone around most of the obstacles, though it was hard to tell whether they would have arrived any earlier.

"Regardless, you guys are here now so let's get you started with your subject selection." The students trailed behind Professor Marluck, each inspecting the massive corridors and the very extravagant arrays of light from magical fires and plants, often reflected and focus into beams which were reflected above their head in elaborate patterns. The effect was dazzling to say the least, though it was surprisingly humble. Terence could feel everything around them humming with magic, the magic in the air dancing against his skin. Terence focused on the magic and nearly staggered by the sheer amount that assaulted his senses. This school was an excellent place to test his ability, he was going to have a lot of fun cracking the secrets hidden in these walls.

They entered a classroom which again surprised Terence. There were sets of wooden tables and cushions everywhere; at the front of the room was a large blackboard. Terence noticed how small class sizes appeared to be, which seemed to match the selective nature of the school. Choosing a cushion between Katie and another student, Terence looked at the book with the subjected listed along with a course description. Terence stared astonished at the extensive list of subjects, this school had every subject one could think of, muggle and magical.

Settling down to read through the course descriptions, Terence decided that he won't be taking any muggle subjects, that was a waste of time spent here. He also ruled out anything which would require a magical circuit, which was out of the question. Instead, he decided to improve on what he could achieve.

Terence chose potions, herbology, study of magical creatures, metal magic, feather and stone magic and arithmetic after a long time flipping through the book. Finishing the passage on the arithmetic course, he then went back to runic magic. The study of runic magic seemed more beneficial than herbology, given he would really need runes in order to work arithmetic well. Besides, he can always look up how to take care of plants, or even buy ingredients when he needed it. Scratching out herbology, Terence put in runic magic instead, sure that each and every one of the course is something he can at least make progress in. One thing however still troubled Terence. Akren required each student to have an animagus form before graduating, and even though he assured the headmistress he would be able to do so by twenty-one, when he graduates, he really hadn't got a clue on how yet.

Closing the book, Terence found most people are already finished, having had a faint idea on what they planned on doing beforehand.

"What did you choose?" Asked Roy and Sasura from Katie's left.

Katie answered before Terence, "Healing, thread magic, inventive magic class, transfiguration, study of magical creatures and herbology."

"Potions, study of magical creatures, metalmagic, feather and stone magic, arithmetic and runic magic." Terence listed.

"You should know that metal magic is a goblin specialty and you really can't excel in that class." Professor Marluck interrupted, having overheard the conversation.

"That's alright," answered Terence cheerfully, "the teacher is a human and he did well for himself, I'm sure I will do okay too."

The silver hair man stared at the young man, a bit shocked, but then an odd grin graced his face as though he recognised Terence.

"So you are that person. Interesting, just so you know as much as we look forward to seeing your growth, us teachers won't be going easy on you." Terence stared back at the comment, well that was expected though still surprising, he thought only Nvara would know what he was.

"Well I got bloodmagic, thread magic, tracking, disguise, wandless and armed combat." Roy chipped in, breaking the moment of silence following the statement.

Sasura gave Roy an annoyed look before stating her subjects, bloodmagic, potions, thread magic, wandless, transfiguration and armed combat."

"Quite a while variety of subjects there, I wish you guys all the best." Professor Marluck announced before waving his wand to collect their sheets of paper and the subject book.

"I'll show you to the room and then you can head off to a VERY late dinner," reminding them that they had better drastically improve themselves after that poor performance finding the school.

XXX

The room turned out to be exactly as Terence expected a large empty room with the basics -three areas, living, sleeping and toilet. He was a bit surprised that they didn't share rooms but then again, it made sense considering all the different subjects, most of which don't happen during the same time and a majority of which required private time and space in which to practise. Setting Rex free to race around the empty space, Terence decided to deal with the room setup later considering his inability to use magic meant it would take a lot longer than everyone else here. Going over to the balcony, Terence found he had a perfect view of the lower end of the valley, though he would really need to wait for morning to admire the sight. In the dark, most things were pretty hard to focus on, even with the magical luminous plants scattered around most of the valley.

Hearing a knock, Terence went to get the door. Roy, Sasura and Katie stood outside, waiting for him.

"How come you haven't unpacked?" asked Roy in his typical un-thought-through, straight forward style.

"I thought I might do that after dinner, seeing as it might take some time." Roy smacked himself over his stupidity even as Sasura and Katie offered to give the white hair teen a hand. Inviting them in, Terence went over to his backpack and pulled out his dimension rope.

Terence noticed the others focusing completely on his hands upon seeing him start one of his alchemy tricks. Putting the rope on the floor in a perfect two metre radius circle, he discretely sprinkled some powder onto the overlapping ends before making a show of cutting his hand to drip blood onto the ends. Better not to reveal everything, especially anything dimension related. The others leaned in as Terence beaconed them forward, the four of them watching colour splashed into view inside the circle.

"You can make a portal?" asked Katie incredulously, "And inside the school!"

"Of course not, it is just an expansion method isn't it?" asked Roy.

Terence nodded. In a way it is not a portal even though it opened into another space and the dimension did expand in order to materialise so he wasn't really lying. Sasura stayed silent, just inspecting his invention. Terence decided that he should be a bit more cautious around the extremely perceptive vampire.

Taking the lead, Terence jumped into the new space, glad that the entry correction potion had been effective in fixing the slight direction confusion. The potion had been one of the hardest to brew, not because of the steps involved, but the setup required. During the fifteen minutes of intense heating at the end of the brewing, the cauldron had to be setup like a gyro, spinning on three planes to create a sense of balance. The setup was a nightmare to achieve without the aid of magic.

With everyone inside his storage room, Terence went about directing his friends in decorating his room. First and foremost, a soft, fluffy black carpet covering everywhere except the kitchen, the toilet and the work area. Leaving Katie to help design and change the kitchen, Terence started moving his work stuff into place with Roy and Sasura. After seeing how much space Terence required, Sasura suggested enchanting the room to be bigger inside. With the new enchantment in place, a new room was added as the work room, where Terence not only emptied a lot of documents, ingredients, materials and an enormous cauldron, but even installed a forge to work metal and various other heavy machineries.

"You do know muggle electronics don't work here?" asked Roy as he watched Terence moved a laptop on to his work bench.

"Of course!" Terence exclaimed, "I haven't forgotten the hard time I had getting here. But I'm going to find a way to make it work, you'll see." True to his words, the teen had been brainstorming ideas to get all his electronic to work in proximity to magic or even run with magic. Most of the ideas were quite sound as far as Terence could tell but his favourite idea was based on a hypothesis which he would still have to test first.

"If you say so."

With the finished room looking very much like a cross between a carpenter's, a blacksmith's and a witch's workroom, they all filed out, Roy conjuring a nice oak door to hide the 'mess', according to Sasura and Katie. Terence begged to differ, the setup was something he had perfected, a layout to maximise efficiency.

The rest of the place was a really quick process, Terence having expressed a desire for a black, silver and blue colour scheme, which the others had easily guessed at just by looking at his furniture. Nice black sofas with light blue cushions, silver dining tables and chairs with black back covers, a lot of other furniture shrunk down by the others to be stored on top of bookshelves filled with reference books. In his room, a nice bed with lots of space underneath to store weapons and other items within easy reach.

With everything setup the way Terence wanted, the others finished by helping their friend with setting up protections around his room. Taking out a metal plate the size of a phone with gems set into it, Sasura taught the other two how to anchor the protection enchantments on to different gems so that Terence could turn them off individually by pricking his finger on the sharp corner of the plate before pressing his finger with a tiny bit drop of his fresh blood against a corresponding gem. Hoping he could soon solve his electronic problem as well as get time to fix his gunpowder problem, Terence setup the most basics of traps until he could get his more advance one running again. Hearing shouts outside the room, the four opened the door to investigate.

"Tyson just got here. He's throwing a tantrum out near the stables." All four friends grinned and raced after the other students to watch the spectacle.

Tyson was indeed standing where everyone had entered the school, giving Professor Marluck a mouthful on how irresponsible the headmistress was to forget a student. Marluck just yawned at the pissed vampire, not even interested and only waiting for his chance to speak.

"I should probably inform you that you are not a student." Marluck interrupted, stressing the word 'not'. That silenced Tyson temporarily as he took in the new information.

"But…"

"You failed to get into the valley before 9:00…"

"But I was only late by a few minutes. And she pushed me off the mountain!" Shouted Tyson, pointing his finger at Sasura. Sasura bared her fangs, Terence watching the interesting elongation of her teeth. He didn't notice before meeting Sasura that vampire fangs could retract and extend.

"I can't help you, you will be…"

"You can't not accept me, you let a muggle in for goodness sake!" All eyes fell on Terence as Tyson again pointed in the group's general direction.

"Go eat dirt Tyson!" shouted Roy as the three non-mortals formed a triangle around Terence, in case anyone was going to react badly to the new information. There were a few shocked looks though nobody seemed inclined to do anything with the other three around.

"That muggle dirt bag doesn't belong here! Muggles are only good as blood banks and sex slaves."

"Shut up!" returned Katie, obviously furious with the insult directed at Terence.

"Whatever prostitute. Just stand there and be pretty, a whore doesn't need to speak." Terence felt the angry energy radiating from a lot of the students. To call a Veela a prostitute was the most degradable term one could use. The tension had got to a very dangerous level and Terence could just about feel the spells ready to fly.

"What, no retort? You…" Tyson never got the chance to finish his sentence, a dark being having materialised from his shadow before giving Tyson the most destructive backhand Terence had ever seen. Tyson flew a good ten meters and slammed right into the wall beside the entrance where everyone watched, his head hitting the wall with a loud thud. Before anyone had a chance to see whether Tyson was knocked out, the person who had popped out of Tyson's shadow appeared suddenly next to him and swooped on the vampire.

A few of the humans gasped as the previously shadow covered person, Terence had no other explanation to the dark substance clinging to the being, lost the cloak of shadow to reveal a tall, handsome vampire with silver eyes and black hair that appeared to meld into the shadows. The vampire took no notice of the students and began drinking from Tyson.

"Tristan my dear parasite, I was going to take care of that brat." Professor Marluck growled at the feeding vampire. The few vampire students present all gasped.

"He is Tristan Namach?" exclaimed one of the vampires in the front. Marluck rolled his eyes.

"I take it he is very important." Terence whispered, hoping Sasura, who was still intensely watching Tristan Namach feeding from Tyson would grace him with some information.

"Tristan Namach is possibly the oldest vampire. More than three thousand years old, he was around when Rome was created. He is the person who invented bloodmagic and anything related. He is the most important figure in the vampiric world." Sasura unloaded, still keeping her eyes trained on the old vampire. Terence looking back at the very messy feeding felt quite uneasy. Vampires really did not belong to the world of muggles, it was a complete shock to know that the thirty something looking man was not only a supernatural creature but also one of the oldest being in existence.

"That is so disgusting!" Roy exclaimed bluntly. Namach straightened after a few more seconds of gruesome feeding and turned towards the small group of first year students.

"I am Professor Namach. I teach bloodmagic, necromancy and soul magic." With that the dark hair man vanished without any warning, taking Tyson with him. A few people gasped and Terence could understand why, he had never seen any sort of teleportation with that little change to the surrounding. He had felt not even the slightest drop in air pressure which usually accompanied one's teleportation. Namach had very skilfully replaced every bit of space taken previously by his and Tyson's body with air from where they had disappeared to. The fact that there was no sound also meant there was no excess energy which was released. All in all, a very skilful and deadly person.

Seeing no explanation from Professor Marluck on his colleague's behaviour, the students began moving towards the dining hall.

"What do you think Professor Namach is doing to Tyson? Keeping him as a blood donor?"

"Are you nuts, why would Namach want such a nut-job?"

"He's not nuts. Weak he may be but he's still within his rights to kill useless mortal slaves."

"No he wasn't. First, when were other students his slaves? Second, slavery is bad. And lastly, killing others only because they are weak is not a correct action."

Terence, Roy and Katie looked at Sasura for an explanation as the vampires in front of them work themselves into frenzy.

"Vampires are very politically driven, even young vampires. Nowadays because of decrease in non-vampiric slavery, we vampires are slowly following the standards as well but there are always a few vampires who can't let go of the old ways of thinking."

"What about Tyson, what will happen to him?" Terence asked. It was Roy who answered though.

"Killed, he knows about the school so he can't live." The blunt reply was a bit shocking but in a way it was to be expected.

In the dining hall, Terence found everything interesting, from the design of the enormous hall to the sudden appearance of food. The others found his behaviour quite odd but now that everyone knew he was a muggle, there really wasn't any need to hide his surprise at the magic. His friends were more cautious, all three constantly checking who were eyeing Terence as a threat or potential prey.

"Don't worry about me, I'll be fine." Terence assured and warned the others. Though they weren't that convinced, his friends relaxed a bit, not wanting to insult Terence.

"Honestly I would be more concerned for anyone who wants to attack someone who single-handedly took down a troll." Aria spoke loud and clear, sitting down opposite of the white hair teen. "Though I can't really say a kid looks very scary."

Terence growled in annoyance as the people around cracked up laughing.

XXX

The next day, each student had an interview individually with the teacher in charge of their chosen subjects after they had been taken on a tour around the school. Terence had been impressed with the list of facilities offered by the school from swimming pools to bloodmagic rooms, greenhouses to forges, mediation rooms to healer's wing, the list went on. They were informed of the class structures during the tour. Student attendances to classes were not compulsory hence teachers did not take a roll. Passing tests were the student's responsibility so everyone learned to make and keep to their timetable.

Students could leave the school anytime by taking a portkey at the trailheads of the valley. The freedom was nearly limitless though the price was also the lack of assistances. Sure, the teachers were there to guide you, but in the end you have to do things by yourself. With the end of the tour, they were each given a sheet with instructions on where and when to take their subject entrance test.

Terence had close to no trouble with all of his test/interview, none of the subjects really required anything special except for runic magic and feather and stone magic. Apparently the use of your own magic was still required to activate the natural magic. Terence had a really interesting discussion with Professor Rafiki, a blinded dark skin man teaching feather and stone magic, and Professor Lyde, the excitable young teacher of arithmetic and runic magic. He had introduced Rex to the two teachers and gave them a demonstration of Rex following his instructions, powering up one of his inventions, a bracelet which when activated provided the user with magic which would materialise a glowing shield similar to his shield potion but without the time constraint and which moved with the bracelet like an old fashion strap-on shield.

The two teachers had still been reluctant to accept the muggle teen into the class initially but Terence had been very persuasive, showing not only the knowledge obtained from his studies on the subjects but also the eagerness to learn. Finally giving in to the excited teen, they had instead pointed out that they expected a lot from him.

The other teachers had no such trouble accepting Terence, given his extensive theoretical knowledge in most of his chosen subjects. The professors had informed Terence the first few lessons may not be suited for him given his knowledge in the basics. Unfortunately given the basic had to be established before proceeding, he would still be required to attend the first semester classes of all the subjects until he did a formal test proving his ability.

Terence didn't mind too much, he needed the extra time to fix all his fired electronics in any case. Looking down at his sheet, he saw only the appointment with Professor Darkwind, the metalmagic teacher was left. Taking a jog to the room and seeing another newcomer race past, Terence thought the rooms were purposely assigned as far from each other as possible to test the student's physical ability. Arriving at the room at exactly six o'clock, Terence knocked on the metalmagic professor's door.

"Come in." Terence thought he heard a Mexican accent. Inside, the professor, a huge man who looked exactly like how Terence would had imagined a blacksmith, was sitting behind a desk examining a very fine metal sword. Terence found his attention drawn to the sword as it always did when he see a fine piece of craftsmanship. The sword was magical was the first thing he established as his sense tingled when he mentally felt the sword. Looking at the blade, he could see that the maker had both functionality and elegancy in mind when forging the piece. The blade was sharp, very well curved so the artistic shape of the blade did not hinder the ability to slices, or jab Terence added noting the symmetry as Professor Darkwind turned the sword. There were intricate runes running down the centre of the blade down right to the hilt, which was plain and made with the wielder's hand in mind. To finish, there was transparent gem Terence thought was a diamond set at the end.

"What do you think of the sword?" Professor Darkwind suddenly asked, indicating Terence should sit down on the seat across from him.

"It is very well designed. The shape is both artistic and deadly. I suppose the gem at the end would either be a diamond or crystal, which seeing how the rune is linked all the way down to the hilt must mean it is used to store magic for when one's magic may be lacking and to amplify the effect of the magic in the sword."

Professor Darkwind grinned, handing the sword to the white hair teen in front of him, inviting him to further inspect the sword. Taking hold of the sword, Terence immediately felt something was off.

"There is a set of rune used to lighten the sword isn't there?" seeing the big man nodded, Terence continued. "That wasn't done very well, it doesn't extend to the hilt and the tip of the sword. I supposed the maker was trying to keep some feeling of holding onto something by keeping the weight in the hilt and preserving momentum of slices by keeping some of the weight at the tip. That isn't very smart though, even if the sword is well made, the lack of weight in the middle through magic still make it a weak area with decreased density. Doesn't help that the sword is slimmest at the middle."

"Very good. What else can you gather from it?" Professor Darkwind asked happily.

"Well, I can't really interpret that many runes at the moment but I can tell at least the sword is meant to project the fire element as well as the lightning element, which begs the question why the runes weren't filled with gold to amplify the power of those runes?"

"Those were really good observations. I see being a muggle just fuelled your curiosity to understand. I'm glad I'll be accepting a human with so much talent this year, we haven't had any species other than goblins and the occasional dwarfs make any headway in the subject."

Terence smiled, that makes two professors who had been completely pleased with his understanding in their subject, the other being Professor Strawlime, the slightly crazy potions teacher who was as much a sadistic as he was a genius. The potions professor had immediately hit it off with the teen after Terence showed him some of his inventions, the one which had the most impact on the bald professor being Terence's accidental discovery of the fiendfyre potion which had nearly burned down the hotel he was experimenting in.

Handing back the sword to Professor Darkwind, he was again informed that he would have to stay in the first semester class until he could take the test to advance forward. Professor Darkwind like Professor Strawlime gave him a list of books which might be useful to him, hinting that he would do well to read those during class time where the rest of the students would first learn the basics of forging, then the different metalmagic types.

Thanking the professor, Terence left to return to his room, hoping to start on the books and read up on the different metalmagics which Terence had a feeling he was not as knowledgeable in as he should to advance in his metalmagic class. Lost in thought, the teen reflexively dived off to the side as a spell threw at him. Rolling and jumping back up, Terence immediately had to duck again as two other jet of light went for his head.

"Hey muggle, what do think you're doing here? This is Akren Mountain School of MAGIC, you don't belong here."

Terence got up and had a look at his attackers. Two humans and, Terence took a deep breath to confirm the wet fur smell, a werewolf. Funny, Terence thought vampires would be most opposed to him being here, not humans. The three had form a circle around him and one of them seemed to have casted some sort of containment spell. Terence groaned, why did he have to forget to bring his waist pouches today.

With no way to escape the area, Terence prepared to knockout each of his attackers until the spell dissipated. All three had their wands out but only the werewolf stood with one leg in front of the other. Terence knew he should probably take down the werewolf first, the other two were obviously not used to non-magical combat. If he could beat the werewolf, he should be fine.

Crouching slowly, Terence saw the others close in. The werewolf blinked and Terence launched himself at him. The two humans fired off spells that flew over his head. Coming up from his low position near the ground, Terence nearly collided with the werewolf's knee. The werewolf was fast, but fortunately Terence was no longer estimating the magical world and the inhabitants. Putting his hands on the up-coming knee, Terence pushed off, using the momentum to propel him up, Terence did a quick somersault and came back down with his legs extended. His heels slammed straight into the werewolf's head and knocked the werewolf out.

The other two students slowed, seeing their mate taken out by the muggle. One moved back, probably working a long spell while the other shot a few spells in quick succession, intending to stall Terence. The brightly coloured spells were easy to dodge, their flight not even curving in the slightest to follow their target. Terence closed in on the person in front faster than he expected, moving quickly pass the guy and striking the guy in the neck with a simple knife-hand strike. Terence felt the magic build up as the last standing student readied his spell. Knowing he couldn't make it to him in time, Terence pulled out a knife strapped to his wrist. Taking aim Terence threw the weapon, the handle hitting the man in the throat.

With the sudden loss of concentration, the energy built up dissipated. With the extra time gained, Terence managed to place another knife against the person's neck, this time the blade lying against across the throat.

"Give up, you guys lost." The man growled at Terence's words, still obviously planning to attack again. Terence pushed the blade down, drawing a tiny drop of blood.

"Terence, I wouldn't do that if I were you. If you need to kill him you should do it outside of the valley, the backlash here would kill you as well." Terence turned back to find Professor Darkwind leaning against a wall, having taken down the temporary barrier at the end of the corridor. Terence loosened his hold on the other student and he barrelled away, wands flicking back up. Before the student could chant an incantation, Professor Darkwind disarmed him.

"You should admit your loss, he can still kill you all if he gets out of the valley." Professor Darkwind intervened, "Terence, you should set out your terms."

Terence noted the tip hidden in the statement. Mulling it over, he decided that the whole school doesn't need to know he was a muggle.

"As the winner, I forbid you and anyone else from telling others about my inability to do magic." The loser kept his mouth shut, cautious of the presence of the professor.

"Terence, you do know others might reveal your secret anyway?" Professor Darkwind reminded the teen.

"That's alright, we got that covered." Both professor and student turned to see Roy, Sasura and Katie walked towards them, the smell of blood following the three.

"We got to everyone, a lot of people didn't mind and took a vow to stay silent while the rest, let's just say they took the vow too." Roy informed the others. "Make sure you get these three to take a vow too."

Terence grinned, seemed like he could keep his secret to only those who saw Tyson's outburst. Walking forward to the only conscious attacker, Terence looked expectantly at Roy. Roy moved forward and ordered the two to clasp hands, placing his wand on top of the two hands. Seeing Roy nodded his head, Terence began what he supposed was the unbreakable vow.

"Do you vow to keep my true identity a secret unless you receive my permission to reveal that I am a muggle?"

"I…I do." A thin strand of orange flame threw from Roy's wand tip and snaked around the hands. With the disappearance of the link, the other student released Terence's hand and ran off. Roy fired off a simple tickling spell after the retreating back of the man which hit the wall as the target rounded the corner.

Katie and Sasura both went to wake up the other two, leading the renervated werewolf and human to Terence with wands and knives against their back. Terence's mentally laughed at the absurdity of the incantation 'enervate' and 'renervate' as the spell for waking someone unconscious before reminding himself he was supposed to make the other two take the vow too. Repeating the previous process, the other two also ran off right after, not wanting to linger around in case Terence had any other demand.

"Well that was fun!" Roy exclaimed.

"I would suggest you four go have dinner than go back to your rooms to rest up, classes start tomorrow and you want to be in your best when you join the other students as well." Said Professor Darkwind who had stayed to watch the development.

"Yes professor. Thanks for your help." Terence said. The four went towards the dining hall, chatting about their day.

Professor Darkwind turned around to return to his room, only to find the headmistress standing behind him with her hands crossed.

"Nvara, I see why you decided to let the kid in. What did you do to let a muggle through though?"

The older lady smirked and kept silent. Professor Darkwind sighed, Nvara wasn't headmistress for no reason, and the teachers couldn't really hope to decipher her.

XXX

The first lessons of each subject was a bit dull given Terence's extensive knowledge in each of his chosen subjects but never the less he paid a lot of attention to the professors to make certain he knew everything needed to advance in his classes. Professor Strawlime, who had spent the start of Terence's first lesson in Akren informing the students that they were all expected to know a wild variety of potions and that the class you would be teaching harder potions and also properties of ingredients so as to advance to the level of potions inventing.

"You are each going to read through the school textbook on beginner's ingredients properties and I expect you to be able to get more than seventy percent in your final test on the beginner's ingredients properties. Now, each of you should be able to brew at least a potion so I want you to pair up then brew any potion you know of, and instead of the standard ingredient you were supposed to use, substitute one of the ingredient based on what you can find from the textbook."

"Isn't that dangerous?" Asked the girl sitting behind Terence.

"Usually yes, but any ingredient you find in the beginner's textbook which is not labelled as volatile would not react that badly in a simple potion. Needless to say substitution of ingredients is no simple task and should not be done lightly. For you guys, this will be the only time you try this out in the beginner's course. Use your brain and work out what potion would be safe to try substitution and make sure you only substitute ingredients found in this book unless I give you permission to do otherwise." Professor Strawlime's eyes flickered over to where Terence sat as he finished his speech. "Well, get started!"

Sasura looked over at Terence as other pairs started discussing their potion choice.

"What do you have in mind?" asked the female vampire, knowing all too well Terence was way beyond the level of this class.

"Why don't you try the task and I'll just help out when you have trouble?"

"In that case I think I'll try a simple cold-curing potion. I got all the ingredients here."

"Then I just prepare the stuff while you try to find an alternate ingredient to anything you see fit." Sasura handed over her old potions textbook used in her previous school and picked up the new textbook instead. Terence flipped through the pages until he found the potion Sasura had in mind. He pulled out ingredients from Sasura's kit and began powdering the leaves of the snow tree, a common magical plant found in any place with temperature below zero degrees.

Sasura constantly flipped back to the index, having trouble with the new concept just like everyone else.

"Don't just look for properties of a new ingredient which might be needed in the potion. Look first at the ingredients in the original potion then figure out which property of those ingredients are utilised in the potion. After, you can look for the exact property you want to replace without having to guess at it." Sasura took in the hint Terence gave her and within minutes, had substituted the beetle's eyes with common ginger. Terence grinned at her choice and proceeded to finish the potion in half the time it was supposed to take.

"How did you do that?" Sasura asked in amazement.

"That is advance potions, substitution of process based on understanding of desired result." Professor Strawlime answered before Terence had a chance. "Very impressive work Terence, and you too Sasura. Good job figuring out beetle eyes targets blocked nose in the potion and substituting with ginger. Incidentally, do you know why ginger is not commonly used in the cold-cure?"

"I'm not sure."Sasura replied.

"It is because non-magical ingredients are not very effective in potions." Answered Terence seeing as his partner did not know the answer.

"That's right. Since you two are done, you guys can go first." The bald professor then addressed the class. "For those of you still having trouble with the textbook, please first refer to the original ingredient properties in order to actually find the effect which you may want to replace…"

"How did you learn those techniques?" asked Sasura as the two left the classroom.

"I just experimented with the ingredients."

"That's really reckless!" exclaimed Sasura, horrified.

"It's not that bad, you can kind of tell how each ingredient would react and what sort of properties they have." Terence said, waving off Sasura's concern. "I'll show you sometime, you'll see what I mean."

"You are impressive you know that? Only a few people can invent potions without blowing up something spectacularly, I heard even Professor Strawlime couldn't avoid blowing up a few concoctions when inventing the cure for magical fire-bee stings."

"Well I wouldn't say my inventions are entirely explosion free…" Terence didn't finish his sentence, remembering the few close to death experiences because of his desire for knowledge.

Sasura frowned at the response but didn't pursuit the matter, in Akren, you needed to be able to judge for yourself what was reckless and what was careful risk taking.

The pair made their way to their rooms to drop off their potion's textbooks and kits seeing as they had time to spare before their next class. Parting ways at their rooms, Sasura went into the room next door to Terence's.

_How was the first class?_

_It was just as the professors told me, the beginner class was way below my current level. How about you, getting use to the room? I know it isn't very spacious but I don't want you wandering about until I have got a mental map of the school._

_Don't worry Terence, I'll be fine. I got you're your magic mirror button to entertain me._

Terence fingered the first button on his shirt, feeling the smooth two way mirror which he had cut into tiny circles to attach to different things for use as a spying camera. The system was very ineffective, with the other intact mirror only showing an image the size of the other shard. It was also pretty confusing, Terence having placed other shards onto school corridors, resulting in a lot of tiny dots of images on the spying mirror, each hardly distinguishable from the other.

Rex jumped up onto his master's shoulders, watching Terence first put away his potions kit and book, and then inspect the mirror Rex had just been watching. Terence squinted at the small dots all over the surface. He really needed to fix his electronic systems.

A soft knock reminded Terence he still had class. Giving Rex a rub before placing him back onto the bed, Terence raced out.

"I know your watch had probably stopped so here." Sasura said, handing over a plain black watch that Terence supposed was running off magic.

"Thanks. What do you have now?"

"I have transfiguration. Terence, how are you going to get an animagus form?"

"I don't know, I'll just have to figure it out before we graduate."

"Well, you better get on…"

"Hi Terence! Hey Sasura, we should get moving to transfiguration, it is quite far away." Katie called as she got out of her room.

"Hey Katie, you didn't have morning class?"

"Nope. Anyway, less talking, more walking." Katie chastised the others, pushing Terence off towards his class and pulling Sasura to theirs. Terence checked the watched handed to him and was surprised by the time, they might actually be late if they didn't hurry.

Terence raced off to his arithmetic class. Professor Lyde walked in a second after Terence found his seat and began his class with a basic introduction.

"Arithmetic is the use of numbers to compliment any magic work. You will notice that it is used in a variety of subjects such as potions, runic magic, enchanting, or even wand usage. This field of magic may not seem very important but believe me it is. For those of you studying runic magic or magic history, you will have an advantage in this class. That being said, it is still nevertheless a class mainly focus on muggle mathematics in order to derive numbers favourable to a specific magic work. We'll begin by looking at some basic mathematics so as to make sure everyone is at least on the same page…"

Terence listened intensely at the start but slowly drifted off once they began on mathematics revisions.

XXX

"I can't believe you felt asleep during your first class!" Katie reprimanded. Roy and Sasura just laughed.

"Look, I am not trying to brag but seriously I can do that level of maths in my sleep." Terence replied, his face turning red.

The paired continued to argue until they entered the school dining hall where they were immediately assaulted by spells. Terence used to quick defensive manoeuvres quickly dived to the side, dragging Katie who was closest as well. The other two saw Terence jump to the side and copied, diving in the same direction.

Terence's hands were just about to reach for his throwing knifes when Roy placed his hand on top of Terence's.

"Don't, I think this is just the older kids' form of greeting." Terence looked around and spotted numerous spells flicked casually at the newcomers. What a strange way to greet new people.

Dodging spells left, right and centre, the four made their way to the lunch buffet. Roy and Sasura took turns deflecting the stray spells which flew towards them as they picked from a wide selection of food. Terence just couldn't stop himself from being amazed at the wonders of magic. He did not know the names of half the food, let alone taste them. Deciding to stick with food he already knew of today, he quickly piled his plate sky-high, ignoring the raised eyebrows and made his way with the other three to one of the tables.

"Hello newbies. Heard you guys were pretty slow to get to school. Don't worry too much, the important thing is becoming better, though you might a bit more natural talent"

Terence and the others grinned. They may have been the second slowest year group to find the school but there was no way they would let that depressed them. There was too much to learn to be worrying.

Terence gorged himself on his large plate of food while the others chatted with the older students, half listening to the conversations but more focused on the excellent texture of the food.

"How do they make the food here?" Terence suddenly spoke up during a slight pause in the conversation.

"The house elves makes them, didn't your old school have the same system?" One of the older student Terence thought was called Eric replied.

"Yea, but the food wasn't as good." Terence lied without a pause. Eric nodded, obviously in agreement with the teen's observation, taking a bite out of his extremely bloody steak. Funny, Terence thought werewolf's only desired raw meat in their transformed form.

"That's all good but how the hell are you eating so much?" Sasura asked, not even bothered to mention that Terence did not look the type to be able to even finish a slice of steak.

"I always eat that much." Terence replied, "I just don't seem to grow a lot."

"Leave the man alone, he's eating. And there's nothing wrong with eating loads." Roy interrupted as Sasura opened her mouth to ask another question. Sasura sighed, looking at Roy's even bigger plate of food and wondered how the two boys could be so gluttonous, ignoring the loud yelp behind them as one of the newcomer stumbled spectacularly from a tripping jinx.

XXX

After lunch, Roy and Sasura went off to their bloodmagic class while Katie went to her herbology class. Terence went back to his room, fully intending to fix his electronics. In his work area, Terence took out a blank piece of paper and started jolting down ideas of fixing the muggle technological problem.

Remembering a book on the muggle electronic and magic combinations, Terence went to his bookshelves to seek out the book. Rex, wanting to assist his master, went around looking for the book on the bottom shelves. It took a while given the books were not in the order and place Terence used to store them, but Rex found the elusive book in the end, proudly presenting it to Terence.

Letting the young Kyuubi sleep on his lap while he worked, Terence flipped right to the end where there were mentions of the current methods of combination. The technique were just brief descriptions because nobody actually would reveal such high level work but the basis of it was still replacing all muggle component with magical components which imitated the muggle components. Terence closed the book, those techniques may be effective, but that involved reworking every technology that may be placed in high magical situations.

Terence's idea was more usable, given his theory was not flawed. Carrying Rex gently and placing the cub on his bed, Terence returned to the work room to try out his theory. First, he needed two sets of ceramic wires. Next, he quickly opened his rope dimension portal and grabbed a bottle of liquid nitrogen. Fixing a working light bulb to a battery into a circuit using the wires, Terence watched the whole wires melt the moment electricity which was run through the circuit. Next he repeated the setup but poured liquid nitrogen on the setup before connecting the circuit. This time the bulb glowed without a hitch.

Terence smiled, so his theory was correct. Electricity held magic, which was why in a magic filled environment running electricity through a circuit would melt the system. The energy in the system was simply too great. But by that logic, a superconductor would be able to withstand the increased power as none of it was turned into heat now that there was no resistance in the wire. Of course, that depended on the system being fully superconductive Terence added to his mental observations as the light bulb burned out. The wires in the bulb, just like the wires in other technology would need to be cooled beyond what liquid nitrogen could achieve before turning into a superconductor.

Quickly writing down his findings, Terence placed them in a folder labelled magical electronics before pulling out a new piece of paper to brainstorm a working design of what was slowly forming in his mind. He'll need to ask Professor Lyde for help but he believed he would be able to create the new solution. Totally focused on his creation, Terence failed to hear Roy sneak in and turned his living room pink, pulling off the first prank Terence would be experiencing during his time in Akren.

xxxxx

I'm very happy that the chapters are finally getting to decent lengths. I have lots of ideas on the type of magic/alchemy that Terence and the others will do and I really would love it if people can give me feedbacks on them. The plot is coming along as well but don't expect it to pop up too soon, I'm having too much fun working with my magic ideas and also exploring the other type of magics Miranda thought up of. :D Anyway, please review! Your comments would make my day ...er ...fortnight.


	6. Chapter 6: School Life

Writing Status: Life is as busy as ever and it is hard to find the time to relax let alone write. I don't think I can maintain Akren Mountain School of Magic seeing as not only does it take me a long time to write the story, but because it builds up on Miranda's story, a lot of time is spend cross-referencing her works. I am considering ending this project and just uploading what I have written of the next chapter. I do want to continue writing however so I will probably start an original story which should at least cut my work load by half. I don't suppose a lot of people will care either way but if anyone would like to have a say, feel free to tell me what they think with a review.

Because they are just sitting there, I've decided to put up my brainstorm notes as well as a short story on Terence's inventing. :) Those will both be in the side story, Enjoy!

Response to readers: Dschingis - I haven't actually abandoned the story yet but I might put it on long term hold.

Chapter 6: School Life

Three weeks into the new Akren school life, Terence had finally perfected his solution to his electronics problem. The solution was a small sticker made of a very thin gold sheet with ceramic powder scattered inside the gold. The ceramic were distributed in very precise runic patterns to cool any metal which had electricity passing through within a thirty centimetre radius from the sticker. The electro-sticker, a simple name Terence thought of that didn't gave away the inner workings, was simply stuck to the centre of any electric appliance before the appliance was turned on in a magical environment.

It took a lot of time to develop even with help from Professor Lyde and Professor Darkwind, both teachers having been told what was being invented. Terence had been very surprised when he asked whether both professors would like to be acknowledgement, both had not only declined, but told Terence he would had managed to invent the electro-sticker in a year anyway because of the general simplicity of the invention. They had also advised Terence to keep his invention a secret, given there were already solutions to the problem in existence.

"I can't believe nobody had thought of such a simple invention." Exclaimed Professor Lyde as they examined the circular gold sticker, only a centimetre in diameter. Both professors and Terence were inside Terence's work area, inspecting the finished product.

"Well, no-one every thought to check whether the magic was affecting the electricity, not the muggle components. Heck, the finding on the magical conduction and absorption ability of electricity is an even bigger achievement then the invention." Said Terence from his position in front of his work bench where he was attaching the stickers onto every electronic item he own. His computer was running in front of him, recording everything Terence had observed since he enter Akren as the scanner Professor Lyde had spelled, inputted the data.

"Your metal workmanship is very good, with the small size of the original stickers, you would be able to shrink them down even further with simple magic." Professor Darkwind commented, waving his wand over one of the sticker and reducing it to the size of a pinhead. Terence walked over and picked up the smaller sticker which he could hardly see. It was perfect for his tiny spy cameras.

"Professor's would you two like a few?" asked the teen.

"It's alright, we don't really have much need for these." Professor Darkwind answered for them both.

"And we suggest you keep this to yourself, it is something that will give you an advantage over your peers." Professor Lyde added, eyeing the impressive amounts of gadgets that were littered across the teens work bench. "We'll take our leave today, if you have any other projects don't hesitate to ask us for help."

"Thanks professors."

Terence saw the professors out before touching the little remote in his pocket, raising the enchantments his friends had helped him erected. Moving into his room, Terence felt under the bed and pulled out his dimension rope and the small pouch of red powder.

"You know you can't keep that secret."

Terence swung around, knives appearing in his hand before he realised it was Sasura. The female vampire tilted her head, looking around Terence's body at the dimension rope. Terence sighed, Sasura was just too good at sensing the different magic at work. The stray thought of whether Sasura was better at feeling magic than him popped up before Terence shook in out, she was good and that was all that mattered.

"I know I can't. So I'm grateful for your help in putting that enchantment in place to distort the feel of magic in my room." Terrence turned around to walk into his work area and Sasura followed.

"I take it you managed to solve your electronic problem."

"Yea… Might just as well tell you it is those stickers that you are looking at." Terence told Sasura unnecessarily as he watched her inspect the small gold sticker on his working laptop. Terence opened his storage dimension while the vampire picked up the bag of stickers.

"You might as well help me stick it to my other inventions. And I'm not telling you how they work, you know too much about my inventions as it is." Sasura pouted and followed Terence through the rip in space.

It took half an hour to finished tagging all of Terence's inventions, an indication of his interest and ability in inventing gadgets. Terence occasionally grabbed an item or two as they went, collecting any useful electronics which had previously not been working. Terence was glad for Sasura's help as some of the stuffs were fried even though the teen had made sure to keep them off. A quick reparo fixed the melted circuits and the stickers eliminated the probability of them frying again.

"Anyone in?"

"In the work area." Roy and Katie walked into the messy room just as Terence closed the storage dimension.

"You know I hate it when you two come in through the balcony."

"Come on, I stopped pranking you so cut me some slack."

"Only after I shot you in the ass with a bow! Stop jumping that gap between yours and my balcony. And…" Terence left his sentence hanging as he turned to Katie. There was no point in asking someone who could fly to stop coming in through the balcony.

"So you fixed your muggle electronic problem." Roy stated, picking up an ear piece.

"Yes I did." Terence replied, pulling his invention off the cheetah fae and putting it on his ear. Flicking a switch on the gadget, a part extended forward towards his eyebrows where it bended round and a thin glass dropped in front of Terence's eye.

"Wow!" The other three watch fascinated as Terence slowly armed himself the way he had intended. A small phone size pad which had every function you could imagine went in his pocket. Two guns were attached to his waist utility belt and Terence swapped the watch Sasura gave him to a silver white one which though plain looking, had many function imbedded into the small frame. To finish, Terence stuck a small device one of his back tooth.

"Can we go to lunch now?" asked Roy.

"Alright just let me grab a few things from my room." Terence went into his room and armed himself with a standard katana across his back.

"Beep" Main computer finished data input.

The sound came from the earpiece, which was connected to every gadget Terence had.

"Show all information lists." Terence spoke softly into the mouth piece in his mouth. The information promptly showed up on the glass in front of Terence's left eye. He scanned the list quickly before removing the lists.

"Close eye info. Retract eye piece." The eye piece retracted and Terence went to give Rex a nice ham roll from the magical freezer. No point using an ordinary freezer when the system to keep it working cools metal to zero Kelvin, easier to just enchant a metal box to keep its content cold. Terence opened the freezer to find it missing a ham roll.

_Rex!_

Rex stayed snuggled in his bed, taking peculiar interest in grooming his fur. Terence sighed.

_Well you ate the ham roll so don't complain later._

Giving the Kyuubi one last annoyed look, Terence joined the others to fill their bellies.

"So Katie, your folks work in the magical creature smuggler catching business right?" Terence asked on their way to the dining hall.

"Yep. They are trying to catch an illegal magical creature circus at the moment. This group has been on the top of the wanted list for quite a while now." Katie replied.

"Really?" This peaked Terence's interest. They sounded like the group who were Rex's captors. "Do tell."

"Well, the group smuggled many endangered species from wild-life sanctuaries and they even kill a lot of people to do so. Many creatures should be left alone without human interactions but the circus group are making money from showing off these endangered species. They train the creatures to do shows with really cruel methods and the worst part is they sell off any creature to anyone who is willing to pay enough money." Katie informed them, not needing to add the sold creatures were usually killed for rare potion ingredients.

Terence and the other two cried in outrage, and Katie nodded unhappily.

"So that's why I hope to help out the moment I get out of school."

"I'll help!" announced Terence suddenly. The others stared at Terence's enthusiasm. Terence shrugged.

"Rex was captured by an organisation not unlike the one you just mentioned. And believe me when I say those guys were really cruel." Terence shuddered at Rex's experiences which Terence had convinced the young Kyuubi to show him after Rex kept waking from nightmares. Just last night Rex had had one of those nightmares which had sent agonising amount of magic to Terence through their link even as Terence struggled to wake the young cub.

"Well, I think I'll join you guys." Said Roy in his usual spontaneous decision making self. "I was going to swap out thread magic for something else anyway, thread magic is just not my style. I'll take up study of magical creatures."

Katie happily clasped Roy's hand though Terence noticed that Sasura stayed quiet.

"You don't have to join us if you don't want to." Katie told Sasura kindly. Sasura nodded but Terence could tell it wasn't just not wanting to, something else must be troubling her.

"I'll think about it…" Sasura trailed off. Respecting her privacy, the other three didn't pry though Terence couldn't help but immediately recognising the signs of family troubles.

The foursome arrived at the dining hall to find it spotting a new colour scheme. Bright pink and purple seemed to be the theme with a few occasional shade of red.

"Roy!"

The cheetah fae just grinned and the others shook their heads, Roy's handiwork is always so… noticeable. Sitting down, Katie and Roy continued their discussion on the line of work Katie's parents did for a living. Terence engaged Sasura in other conversations, keeping one ear on the discussion on his right while keeping Sasura distracted from the same discussion.

"Don't worry, I know you want to talk about the smuggler catching so go ahead, I'm fine" Sasura interrupted Terence in one of his rants.

"You sure?"

"Positive."

"Just remember we're here to talk if you want to." Terence reminded her. The vampire smiled and Terence took his cue to leave her alone, joining the other two in their debate on how to tackle the smuggling problem.

After lunch, the four friends moved off from the dining hall but found the way blocked by a mass of vampire student.

"Another vampire duel, that makes the tenth one this week?" asked Roy as the four shuffled into the circle to watch.

Blood was spattered everywhere, the two vampires were engaged in a no-magic duel, both circling, keeping their eyes trained on the opponent. One vampire launched at the other and the defender quickly moved his hand to intercept the jab at the throat, his hand swinging the attacker's arm up while his leg sweeping the legs from under his opponent.

"That's Thorn, he's the most experienced person in our unarmed combat class." Roy said as Sasura and Katie nodded in agreement. "He just used the Aikido move we are learning in class."

"I thought you guys were in the armed combat class?"

"Yes, but we have to learn unarmed combat before progressing to armed combat. The unarmed and armed combat classes are learning together at the moment."

"Do you think I can come watch the class you have in the afternoon?" Terence asked as he watched Thorn pulverised his opponent, his superior unarm techniques winning him this duel.

"I think you are free to join us if you want, Professor Marluck doesn't mind an extra punch bag. But don't you have Arithmetic?" Roy answered then asked a question of his own.

"Well, we're still learning mathematics side of things so I don't think I need to go to class at all at the moment. I'm going occasionally to check that I'm up to date with the course but even Professor Lyde agreed I'm wasting my time in the class at the moment."

"Well don't say I didn't warn you, Professor Marluck is ruthless." Roy cautioned. Katie and Sasura both nodded again in agreement. Terence watched as Thorn sunk his fangs into the loser's throat and pondered about that.

XXX

Terence ducked under a knife that was aiming for his face and had to immediately cross his pair of knives to block the downward path of the same knife as Professor Marluck skilfully changed his thrust into a slash. Terence caught the slashing knife but got kicked in the face before he had time to push the professor back. Rolling backwards at the contact, Terence reduced the damage on his face though the badly controlled roll was going bruise up his shoulder.

Jumping back immediately, Terence watched the professor as he circled the teen. Knife fight was not his forte but to be so outmatched, Professor Marluck was obviously an expert in knife fights. The different in reach was clear as water, the cuts all over Terence's body aching all over. Terence really didn't have a choice, time to take drastic measures.

Terence waited till the professor had completed another half circle before he acted. Throwing both knifes one after the other at the older man, Terence ran back without watching the result. Racing straight for the suit of armour away from the professor, he ripped the large two handed sword out of the metal hands and had to quickly use the board side of the heavy sword to deflect the two knives that were thrown right back.

Lifting the sword, Terence dully noted that the sword was a bit heavy for him but with no choice swung it at the oncoming professor. The pale green eyes foresaw the move and the man promptly ducked under the gigantic sword. Terence grinned and slammed the handle downwards and the professor rolled off to the side to avoid crashing into the hilt, only to have his face connected solidly with Terence's knee. Sweet revenge.

Marluck rolled back just like Terence did a while back though because of the forward momentum of the roll, he had took a lot more damage than Terence, his nose broken and bloody. This time both teen and man circled each other, Terence thinking up ways to handle the heavy sword in order to catch the nimble professor and Professor Marluck gauging how effective the teen could swing the large sword.

Terence and Professor Marluck must have both came to the conclusion that Terence didn't stood a chance wielding the heavy lump of iron. Both professor and Terence dashed across to where the other students were watching the fight some twenty metres away. Terence was faster than the professor, having chosen to leave the two handed sword behind. Not deterred, the professor threw one of his knife at Terence who dodged, causing the other students to scatter as the blade sank in to one of the wooden benches.

Knife one o'clock.

Terence heard the reminder from his earpiece and took a slight step to the right to kick the knife backward at the professor. The professor again caught the knife expertly and Terence groaned, mentally berating himself for arming his opponent for the second time. Finally reaching the benches, Terence dived for his katana.

Turning around, Terence drew the katana and waited for the professor's next move, holding the perfectly made weapon in front of him. Professor Marluck grinned savagely and lunged, slashing with one hand. Terence calmly deflected the blade and proceeded to strike back with a smooth slice diagonally. Marluck jumped backwards and came in again, this time with a jab aimed at Terence's thigh. Terence swung his katana down in both an offensive and defensive move, forcing the other to abort his attack and jump back.

Terence followed this time, fully intending to stop the wolf tactics Marluck as adopted. A very precise and solid slash downward broke the professor's weapons when he crossed his knives to block the devastating strike. The professor slipped around Terence with a move that impressed the teen and pulled out the knife previously imbedded into a bench. Terence turned to face the professor again but was completely overwhelmed as a series of deadly assassination moves not only disarmed the teen, but had him down on the floor with a knife to his throat in seconds.

"Not bad, not bad at all." Professor Marluck praised the teen and offered him a hand up.

"Those moves, they were so precise and fluid." Terence commented, accepting the hand up and dusting himself off. "Could I borrow the knife?"

Professor Marluck handed the knife over curiously as the teen first balanced the knife on a finger, gauging the center of balance and then swung the knife twice to get a feel for the flow.

"Computer, replay the previous move." Terence spoke so softly even a vampire standing next to him wouldn't be able to hear him. The mouth piece at the back of his mouth registered the sound though, automatically extending the eye piece and replaying the movements recorded by the miniature cameras Terence set up in the gym and the one which lay on the tip of his nose where it recorded what Terence was seeing. The recording on the lens was slower than the actual move, allowing Terence to analyse what he could see.

"Retract eye piece."

As the lens in front of his eye pulled back, Terence passed his fallen katana to Professor Marluck then readied himself in the stance the professor had taken before. Taking a deep breath, Terence suddenly launched himself forward at said man, taking the professor by surprise. A quick jab at the eyes with his left leg ready to kick at waist level forcing the opponent to block with his weapon instead of duck into the kick. Pulling the knife back the moment Professor Marluck moved the katana in front of his eyes, Terence went through with the kick to the man's right rib. The kick connected, causing the taller man to lower his right elbow reflexively and tears swelled up. Terence took advantage of the professor's momentary blink to clear his eyes and jabbed his left hand at the man's right wrist. The precise jab loosened the hold Professor Marluck had on the katana and the swift swing of the knife in Terence's hand disarmed him.

Noting that his now unarmed professor was still a deadly enemy, Terence changed the technique used by the professor to compensate for the height difference and in case the professor had a counter for his own series of movements. Ducking low as opposed to lunging straight for the neck, Terence slashed at the belly. The professor expecting his own moves, barely pulled his body back. Terence grinned at the predicted reaction and grabbed the professor's outstretched arm and pulled himself behind the man in a fluid movement and placed the blade of his knife softly across Professor Marluck's throat.

There was an awkward sort of silence that followed, the students having no idea what the professor's reaction to the loss would be. Terence for his part kept the blade against the man's throat in case the response was negative. Professor Marluck finally broke the silence.

"Bravo. That was a very good imitation and the finisher was perfectly executed as well." Professor Marluck placed his hand on the knife and pulled it away from himself. "I haven't seen someone with that good understanding of a move in a long time, did you figure out the move with just the short replay?"

"Kinda, I got that my natural reaction was used against me so I just observed how you used the chain of movements to predict my response." Terence kept his answer short, wondering how the professor realised he watched a replay seeing as the lens was made to project only on one side.

"Well, keep it up. I think you'll do pretty well in the advance combat classes so think about it if you have time."

Terence thanked the professor, thinking he might join the class when he finished his current classes. A short beep in his ear piece caught his attention, notifying the teen of the end of arithmetic class.

"If you would excuse me professor, I need to talk to Professor Lyde so I'll take my leave. I'm sure everyone is pumped up for your lesson as well." Terence looked at the students start their stretches eagerly now that the show was finished. Bidding the professor and his friends farewell, Terence reclaimed his katana and went to seek out the energetic professor of arithmetic and runic magic.

Moving quickly through the corridors, Terence inspected the black glove around his left hand. His newest invention was a black fingerless glove with ability to do simple wandless magic. Rex's fur had again been utilised for the invention. The fur had been woven into the gloves, allowing Terence to give Rex's magic a purpose with simple hand movements. The small gem at the back of the gloves replaced the large orb Terence had previously used to borrow other's magic. Rex's blood was then used to draw runes on the gloves, giving control to the magic Rex supplied through the potion he drunk daily.

Terence frowned at the thought, even though the magic glove was coming together nicely, he had not been able to make the magic do as he needed without the glove. Rex's magic could only be used to activate magical items when using the tail hair conductors. With the glove, his thought along with his hand movement could combine to make the magic achieve a particular action, though again it was only simple things, with little ability in terms of real spells. What had improved in terms of the Kyuubi tail hair conductors inserted in his head was Terence and Rex's telepathic ability to connect with each other.

_Hey Terence, where are you going?_ Speak of the devil.

_I am going to see Professor Lyde. I want to see if he has any recommendations on better runes to do wand magic with the new gloves. And really Rex, spying is a bad habit._

_But I want to see your fight._

_Well, what do you think about it?_

_It was so cool, you were jumping around and slashing and hacking…_

_Hacking?_

_Well, not hacking but it was awesome. You should have seen the other student's faces, they were so impressed._

_I wasn't really trying to impress, just that Professor Marluck was so strong I couldn't do anything but give it my all._

_You would have beaten him if you wore your glove. _ Rex stated proudly.

_If the professor used magic I would be dead before I could move. _Terence reminded the young Kyuubi. _Anyway, I've got to talk to Professor Lyde. I'll see you in a bit._

Terence ran forward as he saw Professor Lyde walked out of the classroom.

"Professor, could I have a moment?" Professor Lyde turned to see the only muggle in Akren running towards him.

"Sure, how can I help you Terence?" The green hair professor motioned for Terence to talk in the classroom.

"I've come across some complications with my usage of runes on one of my invention and I was wondering if you could give me a hand?" Terence pulled out the black magic glove and passed it to his professor.

Professor Lyde ran a ring finger across the glove, feeling the blood runes which weren't visible. Terence stayed quiet to allow the professor ample time to analyse his new invention, knowing from experience the young teacher had an interest in his inventions.

"The runes are very well done and the magic direction runes are very well chosen. So what is the problem?" Professor Lyde asked after two minutes.

"I want to try and use the glove to do wand magic, not just simple telekinesis. The runes I've used allow me to shoot stunners and a few easy spells but as you can see… feel, the runes had to be specific in order to do any of those spells."

"Terence, runes are very specific, which is one of its advantages, or disadvantage in this case. The fact that you only needed one set of runes to set up the telekinesis part of the magic control was already way beyond most people's ability."

"But what happens if I want to get even more goals with limited amounts of runes?"

Professor Lyde twisted the bracelet around his wrist, the tell-tale signs of when he was talking about a serious topic.

"Terence, forcing runes to do more than what they were made to do can have really dire consequences. Let's look at blood magic, why do you think you need multiple stages of one set of objective?"

"Because your body can only take so much change at a time?"

"Correct. Also, the runes required to do so much change would require days to complete. This is because even though the different stages aim for the same end result, you have to change every little thing separately. Take my advice, just keep layering the runes for what you want them to accomplish. When you learn to combine runes in advance class, then you can think about changing this." Terence nodded, combining runes required very deep understanding of rune history and the only ones Terence was familiar with were Chinese characters. Better to leave the glove as it was. Terence sighed.

"Hey, you did well with this glove. You'll get to the higher levels eventually, just focus on what you can do at the moment." Said Professor Lyde, "How are you going with your magic circuit? You need it to achieve your animagus form."

"Well, I've got concepts at the moment but nothing near completion. I was hoping to be able to try a few things but given the nature of working invention and experimentation on one's body, I'm reluctant to do anything until I am at least past the idea stage." Terence began, knowing runes would make up the majority of his solutions for creating a magical circuit and Professor Lyde's input would be very important even in the idea stage. "What I need is actual experimental results…"

XXX

Study of magical creature was the only class Terence had in which he was behind, not that the teen had any trouble in class but nevertheless, he was mostly clueless about the creatures shown in class. The class taught by Professor Kiara Marluck included mostly students who were potions students or others whose were looking at careers dealing with magical animals.

Today, Professor Kiara was introducing the class to Nightmares, black, entirely female species of horses which had coats that reflected one's nightmares.

"Does anyone know how a Nightmare is produced?" asked Professor Marluck next to Sori, the Nightmare at the front of the class.

"Nightmares are black unicorn/Sleipnir hybrids that were attacked by Dementors at birth. It is the only way a black unicorn/Sleipnir hybrid can live and even then the males all die." Katie answered immediately. Terence was glad he was Katie's partner. Even with everyone here being knowledgeable in magical creatures, the female Veela was the best, her mental library never lacking in creature information.

"Correct. Anyone else can tell the class more about this beauty?" Professor Marluck asked, patting the sleek mare by her side. Terence, like the other students focused on the hand instead of the mare's coat. Professor Marluck had them all read up on the beast before attending class and after someone got completely torn up by a Griffin in the first class, nobody was going to turn up to class unprepared.

"Their coats and the black indentations from their hoofs reflect a person's worse nightmares. Look into the dark matter left behind by the hoofs and your mind may be forever stuck, reliving your hellish dreams. Breathe in too much of the dark flames which covering their form while staring at their coat and the same would happen."

"Correct. Nightmares could consciously control their magic so that one could be sucked in with a mere glance or feel merely a dull tug from their magic. For the trained mind, it is possible to block the effects of the nightmares or even recover from falling prey to one, though only the best would be able to regain their mind after losing themselves in their magic."

Professor Marluck continued to list information not included in the textbook, the students either furiously recording the information like Terence, or had spelled quills to do so.

"Each pair will now take turns and come forward to either groom, saddle or remove the saddle from Sori. The rest will first come up a diet suitable for a Nightmare, then record observations on Sori. I will collect the paper with the diet you come up with at the end of class. Mr Creek and Ms Harrier, please come forward."

Each pair of student proceeded to find a space away from others to concentrate on the task. Terence and Katie went and stood in front of Sori, each person extending his/her hand so the black mare could sniff at their hands. Professor Kiara Marluck just watched as the Nightmare moved into the outstretched hand, allowing the two students to pat the beast on the head.

Katie moved off to gather the equipment required for grooming Sori while Terence continued to coo at the mare. Katie had learnt from watching Terence with animals that they relaxed around him. With the creatures calm and happy, their work was a lot easier. Terence did his part to make the mare feel relaxed around the pair, scratching the beast around the neck until he found a spot it really appreciated. By the time Katie came back, Sori was standing still, ready to be groomed. Terence and Katie both took a hand brush and began combing the coat while inspecting the sleek coat out of the side of their eyes to lessen the effects of the reflection. The Nightmare neighed contently, the dark flames visibly flaring until Terence gave it a stern look, reminding the mare to reel in her magic least Katie or Terence got sucked in after breathing the air around.

"When did Roy say he'll get into this class?" asked Terence. Katie answered from the other side of Sori.

"He wants to try threadmagic for a little longer before dropping it. I think he's going to learn threadmagic by himself after he got the basic. Something about creating a faster style of threadmagic."

"Is it just me or do you sound disapproving?"

"I do. What does he mean a faster style? I know cheetah faes value speed but that doesn't mean everything has to be instantaneous. Worse part is I think Sasura is egging him on."

"Really?" Terence mused over the information. From what he had seen of Sasura's fighting, it appeared her specialty was transfiguration, maybe she wanted to incorporate threadmagic efficiently into that. Something seemed off though, Roy's fast pace magic didn't seem quite compatible with transfiguration, so maybe she just needed the idea.

Professor Marluck sure that Sori was being well cared for, went to gather the next group to saddle the mare. Terence saw the professor moved off and discretely went to collect a few Nightmare tail hairs. Katie, used to the practice just watched out for the professor in case she had any objection to Terence collecting ingredients from her precious creatures.

Sori looked back to see the young teen at her rear and snorted. Terence put a finger to his lips and she quieted down, watching Terence intensely as he slowly clipped a few tail hairs and dropped it in a test tube filled with memories of his nightmares which Katie had pulled out for him earlier. Capping the test tube, Terence pocketed it and went back to grooming the sleek black animal.

"Alright, Mr Creek and Ms Harrier, you may begin on your written work." Professor Marluck informed them as Liam and Rafael, a werewolf and a veela took over, continued grooming Sori. Sori followed Terence and Katie as they went and Professor Marluck had to call it sternly back to where the other two students were watching amused.

Terence and Katie went off a fair distance after Sori attempted to follow them so as to avoid disrupting the other students' attempts. The pair chose a shady area under a tree. It was a really beautiful place Terence thought, looking at the wide pasture three kilometres down the valley from the school. There were a herd of unicorns feeding not too far away. Terence, always fascinated by the younglings, found himself staring at them again, mesmerised by their golden coat.

"This is not common knowledge but the blood of the younger unicorns has the ability to turn anything into gold. It is rumoured that the philosopher's stone was made with the blood from three baby unicorns." Katie said disgusted after spotting what Terence was staring at.

"I presume that is knowledge from the hunters your parents caught?" Terence asked as he pulled out his notebook and a pen.

"Yes. I don't even want to know how many young unicorns had been killed to try and make another of that cursed stone." Katie exclaimed angrily, attracting a few odd glances from the nearest pairs. "Everyone knows Nicolas Flamel only created the stone by pure accident and more than three-quarters of the ingredients are unknown."

"Don't forget he probably didn't kill the unicorns," Terence added in a lower whisper, not wanting anyone greedy to overhear, "This is life we are talking about, murder generally destroys the ability to generate life. Necromancers only manage because they harness the death magic, and even then, the things aren't quite alive…"

Terence felt silent, not needing to finish the sentence. The two worked in silence for a while, each doing a sketch of the Nightmare and replacing the previously quick scribbles into nice eligible words and adding extra observations. The two put together a list of food suitable for Nightmares and under Katie's guidance, Terence devised two different diets for adults and baby Nightmares.

"So, how do we actually join your family business?" asked Terence as they finished their work.

"I think we need to be hired by a country or we can be bounty hunters for hire who specialised with illegal magical creature trafficking."

"I like the idea of being bounty hunters. It would be great to catch the people who had Rex."

"Do you think Sasura would join us?"

Terence shrugged, Sasura was a lot more secretive than them though it was understandable considering vampires were generally very closed mouth about their family. Even if Sasura did plan on joining them, she didn't really have any free class times.

"Dunno, she probably has other commitments." Terence said with a complete neutral face as Katie observed his response critically. Katie probably thought Terence knew more about Sasura's situation given they interacted more with each other and she wasn't completely wrong. He could tell just from her body language that she had some family problems.

"Well regardless, I think we should look up on becoming bounty hunters." Katie said after not getting anything more from Terence. "I think there is an exam we need to pass to become legal bounty hunters. We get a hunter's license which we can use to get information, not that we need it with the Akren network."

"You guys probably want to go to the library to check out the requirements then." Professor Marluck said from behind them. Terence noticed Katie tensed slightly at her voice, having not heard the professor walk towards them.

"Thanks professor." Terence answered quickly as Professor Marluck inspected their reaction to her sudden appearance while collecting their work.

The new students had to pick up fast on the school systems and traditions, most of them having improved very quickly to eliminate what the teachers considered weaknesses. The threat of teachers attacking you for showing your surprise was quite the incentive to learn not to react when a professor popped up suddenly. They had also learnt to project mental tags which displayed their status as Akren students to those who recognised them. Terence had had a lot of trouble producing the tag, given his lack of mental magic.

It had taken a long time to design runes for mental magic work and an even longer time working out how to connect it to him. Rex's fur and blood were currently key components to Terence's magic work as he was borrowing the young cub's magic. After confirming with Professor Darkwind that blood magic could be done on in human blood on other living things, Terence began designing with the reverse in mind, figuring magic using Rex's blood could work on him. Unfortunately it didn't take long for Terence to work out that somehow his body was as incompatible with magic as possible, with all the blood runes on his skin evaporating the moment they were activated.

With Rex's blood runes on his body failing completely, Terence's solution end up being thin gold metal needles with very minuscular runes done in Rex's fur on the surface and washed in the Kyuubi's blood. The dried red needles replaced the fur rods in Terence's head which were his first attempt to establish a connection with Rex. Needless to say Terence again went completely overboard with the amount of runes on the needle, cramming as many designs as the little gold conductor could hold. The resulting explosion from the prototype after Terence overloaded it had set the whole floor shaking. Terence hoped the other students don't figure out where the explosion originated from, there were a few angry vampires who had sworn to kill the bastard who had messed up their potion.

xxx

Story to be continue at a later date.


End file.
